The Cubs thru 4/18

Spring is upon us; the sun is shining, the temperature is rising and baseball is here. Wrigley’s ivy will soon be green, and with time, baseballs will be flying onto Waveland Ave. at a rapid pace.

The Cubs have played nearly 10% of their regular season schedule, and their loyal fans have witnessed some new trends, as well as some old. After their first 12 games, they have a record of five wins and seven losses.

Sitting in my apartment on Opening Day, I couldn’t have been any happier seeing the 3-0 score in favor of the Cubs after the top half of the first inning. Marlon Byrd, the Cubs’ off-season acquisition from Texas, hit a two-run dinger in his first at-bat in Cubby blue. But being a Cubs fan for 20 years, I knew not to get too far ahead of myself; they still need to play the field and record 27 outs before the game is over. The new, thinner Carlos Zambrano of 2010 proceeded to serve up meatballs to the Atlanta Braves lineup, giving up six earned runs before recording the third out in the first inning. Last year, Carlos stopped doing his abdominal workouts before the season ended and his performance reflected it. He came to Spring Training 15 pounds lighter, weighing 260 pounds. He was on a mission to bring a World Series Championship to the north side of Chicago; however, a minor speed bump came in his first start of the season, losing the opener 16-5.

C’mon! Next year is finally here and this is how it starts? Following the Opening Day debacle, I immediately called my pops and told him, “I’m not getting my hopes up this season. I’ve been heartbroken too many times by the Cubbies, so the least I expect all year, hopefully, the happier I am after 162 games.” We’ve all seen it too many times – it doesn’t matter how many games we win during the regular season, we are still prone to getting swept in the first round of the playoffs; just like in 2008 when the Cubs won 97 games and got embarrassed by Man-Ram and the Dodgers.

It was good to see Z bounce back the following start and pitch a solid seven innings, giving up three runs on six hits, including nine strike outs. I was watching the game’s sixth and seventh innings and Carlos was dealing. His fastball looked untouchable and he had that swagger that screams, “you can’t hit me!”

As I mentioned earlier, Marlon Byrd was the Cubs’ most valuable (hopefully) off-season acquisition from Texas. The Rangers’ hitting coach from last year, Rudy Jaramillo, followed Byrd and signed a three-year, 2.42 million-dollar contract. Hendry signed him with hopes to put the pop back in the Cubs’ bats like we all know they have. I can’t be disappointed with Byrd’s production thus far, batting .244 with three home runs and nine RBI’s. He’s well on pace to beat Milton Bradley’s stats from last year (.257 BA, 12 HR, 40 RBI). Have fun with him, Seattle. Ha!

Rudy is doing his job so far. I’m really not one who should judge a hitting coach due to the fact that I probably don’t know half of the information I need to know - but from a fans perspective, here is my judgment. Byrd is producing, as I said; Fukudome has showed signs of life, batting .306 with a dinger and six RBI’s. It looks as if he is showing the patience he had when he first signed with the Cubs in ’08. I’m not too worried about Soriano. Being that he is from the south (way south of the United States), it’s going to take time for him to heat up. Right now, the temperature is a little chilly for him. I suspect that he will show progress by June, at the latest early-July, his bones will start heating up, along with the temperature, and Fonsy will show that he still has the ability to put the team on his back for a month’s span; hopefully, he can produce throughout the entire season and stay off the DL. He’s no longer the leadoff hitter, so he does not have as much responsibility to start the merry-go-round and come up with base hits with no one on base. His lack of hustle will hopefully not affect the team as much, since he is no longer the leadoff hitter. If he is not getting base hits or jacking the ball out of the park, he needs to be hitting deep sacrifice flies in order for the team’s scoring chances to increase – something a leadoff is not expected to do as often.

Aramis is Aramis. He’s going to produce as long as he stays healthy. He’s shown early signs of his ability to whack the ball into the bleachers with one swing of the bat, and just like Soriano, Rami will heat up as the summer months progress.

Of all the Cubs’ position players, their biggest downfall is the second base platoon of Mike Fontenot and Jeff Baker. I like what Lou has been doing with the two players this season, splitting their starts at second base. Fontenot has appeared in ten games, batting .321 with an RBI; Baker has played in seven games, batting .313 with two dingers and three RBI’s. Fontenot has proven that whether he’s an everyday or bench player, his offensive production is going to be very similar. (2007 season: 86 games, 3 HR, 29 RBI; 2008 season: 119 games, .305 BA, 9 HR, 40 RBI; 2009 season: 135 games, .236 BA, 9 HR, 43 RBI). Until the Cubs find an everyday second baseman, Lou will have to make due with the Fontenot-Baker platoon.

D-Lee is always reliable at first. He’s a solid three hitter in the batting order and has quite the glove over at first base. As long as he keeps his strike out numbers down this year, he should be good to go (2007, 2008, 2009: 114, 119, 109). But when will the Derrick Lee era come to an end? Is it time to trade him while he is valuable and bring in a new, young talent to occupy first?

Ryan Theriot, this year’s leadoff hitter depending on our opponents starter, has had some good days and then some bad days so far this season, batting .235 with 4 stolen bases, 4 RBI’s and 3 base on balls. On the defensive side of the ball, he has great range. However, his arm strength…is weak. He gets to more balls in the hole than not, but he lacks the ability to make a deep or off-balanced throw from the shortstop position. This leads me to my next point: Starlin Castro. Castro, the 20-year old shortstop from Cuba, played with the team during Spring Training, and showed signs of future success in the MLB; so far this year in the minors, Castro is batting .357 with ten RBI’s, four stolen bases, and five extra base hits, in his first nine games with the AA Tennessee squad. Lou has said that Starlin will be in the majors at some point this season, but he does not want to rush the decision because it will be worth it in the long run.

The day Starlin Castro joins the team will hopefully be the day The-Riot changes to the Cubs’ everyday second baseman, and Starlin takes over the starting shortstop duties.

Going back to Rudy Jaramillo, he must’ve either forgot about Geovany Soto or was oblivious to his sophomore slump (.218 BA, 11 HR, 47 RBI, and 77 strike outs) last season. Geo didn’t start the season ideally, only having one hit in 11 at-bats the first two series of the season. He, along with Big Z, came to Spring Training with a smaller waste band, on a mission to go back to his rookie ways (.285 BA, 23 HR, 86 RBI) in 2008, when he won the Rookie of the Year Award. Geo has showed signs of life since his one for 11 skid to start the season. As long as he does not start getting high again, thus, preventing the munchies, he should keep off the 40 pounds he lost and increase his production on the field. I’d love to see him finishing the year with a .300 BA, 25-30 HR, and 85-90 RBI.

It does not matter how many runs our offense scores or how many scoreless innings our starters pitch, if the bullpen does not do its job, the Cubs will not win.

Ryan Dempster’s April 18 start vs. Houston was a gem. He went 7.2 innings of scoreless baseball, and left the game, hoping for a win, with two outs and runners on first and second. Carlos Marmol, our “go-to-guy,” came in for relief and proceeded to serve Jeff Keppinger a slider that did not break as much as it should have, and Keppinger lined it to center; one run scored and Dempster was charged with an earned run. Marmol went back to close out the ninth with a 2-1 lead; he gave up a second run, the first charged to him, and the Astros tied the game at two. The Cubs ended up losing the game 3-2 in ten innings, and Dempster’s gem went down as a no decision.

For years, our bullpen has been the reason for many losses and has never been able to be established as a reliable relief system. As bad as Marmol can look one day, with the power of short-term memory, he can come back the next and look unbelievable. He proved this when he closed out the April 14 game against the Brewers. With a 7-6 lead going into the ninth inning, Marmol struck out the side (Corey Hart, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder) and earned his third save of the season. Sean Marshall has pitched well in relief. Yes, he has given un-opportune runs at times, but his command has looked great. He has the strength to throw in long-relief situations and has been developed this ability over the last few years with the Cubs. If an injury ever occurs in the starting rotation, I would love to see Marshall earn the fifth spot in the rotation. I can’t help but to yell, “give him the cheese!” every time he faces a batter with two strikes. His curveball is nasty!

Carlos Silva has yet to disappoint me this year, with a record of 1-0 and a 0.69 ERA. I did not expect much out of him being that the Cubs did trade him for Milton Bradley – I was expecting another fat, head-case, Venezuelan pitcher with less skill than Carlos Zambrano. If Carlos “TONS of pitching” Silva doesn’t continue on the path in which he is headed, like I previously said, give Marshall the opportunity to prove himself. The big man even legged out a double while driving in a run against Houston. We’ll see how he pans out; so far he has and those who bleed Cubby blue have nothing to complain about.

Randy Wells is a stud. He is the next (healthy) Chris Carpenter and has said that is whom he models his game after. I look forward to watching him pitch for the next several years in a Cubs uniform (hopefully).

Neal Cotts is finally off the squad. He should have stayed on the south side rather than single handedly lose the North-siders numerous games throughout the years by dishing up meatballs for the hitters to blast onto Waveland and Sheffield. Jeff Samardzija should take off his fitted cap and make his way to Bourbonnais for Chicago Bears workouts. After the Cubs drafted him in 2007, I thought he’d work his way to being a solid reliever, and maybe even a decent starter in years to come. I was wrong. He belongs on the football field, because he certainly no longer belongs in an MLB clubhouse.

Before the start of the 2010 season, I heard great things about Esmailin Caridad. He has been nothing short of bad this season, giving up four runs in 2.2 innings and having an ERA of 13.50. He is young and he has talent. I am not going to jump on his case just yet, but over the next couple of months he needs to find his command and sit hitters down, like we are expecting him to do.

From what I’ve seen so far, I do not see us earning a playoff birth. However, as our offense has shown, they have the ability to put runs up at will. When Ted Lilly returns to our rotation, we have arguably one of the best starting rotations in baseball (Zambrano, Dempster, Wells, Lilly, Silva). It is up to our bullpen. If our starters leave the game with a lead, the bullpen needs to get the job done and end the game with the lead. That is what they are getting paid to do. We have the talent, we just need to prove it.

Go Cubs Go!