stink

maybe this page has been a little too hard on dusty baker. certainly, jim hendry has to come in for a lot of criticism for assembling this club, which flailed uselessly to yet another loss yesterday in san francisco. to drive home the depth of the problems made apparent by the 1-8 road trip just ended -- the cubs' worst since 1971 -- note that giants' slugger and erstwhile cub moises alou was on the disabled list for the series and hall-of-famer barry bonds whent 1-for-10 -- and the cub pitching staff allowed 16 runs anyway. while the offense is certainly catatonic, cub pitching is in little better shape.

sure, dusty's done a lot of silly things. the double-switching is often madness. lineup construction is bizarre. he's arguably destroyed mark prior and kerry wood. and the team has clearly given up -- dusty's lost them, if effort is any measure. why he'd be kept around is beyond this writer.

but you can't say he doesn't understand his situation. "stink" perhaps isn't the most eloquent word for this cub team, but it has its merits. and a comcast advertising gaffe has made it somewhat more clear that baker is as frustrated as many of us are with the outcome of this offseason of failure.