Thursday, May 17, 2007

Another bullpen debacle



You have to hand it to the Chicago Cubs. I don't think there is another professional sports franchise out there that repeatedly finds such crusing ways to lose. The graph above really says it all.

On Thursday afternoon the Cubs lined up against a Mets lineup that didn't include All Stars David Wright, Carlos Beltran or Jose Reyes. The Mets started a pitcher that just came up from triple-A. The Cubs were playing against a triple A team.

It looked like the Cubs pocketed this game in the top of the sixth when Aramis Ramirez homered to give the club a 5-1 lead. The Cubs offense, as has been there tradition as long as I can remember, went on cruise control. Didn't add on any runs, and frankly it may not have mattered. Because in the ninth inning Ryan Dempster and Scott Eyre couldn't get outs. That led to the 11th loss by the Cub bullpen this season.


Games like today propel teams like the Mets to bigger things. If you're a Mets fan you circle this game on the pocket schedule. You know you will see it on the end of year commemorative DVD. As far as the Cubs go, I really don't know how many losses like this a team has to go through. With every heartbreaking loss like today it becomes more and more clear this team isn't going to go anywhere. It's only May 17th and the Cubs have already lost more than their share of these types of games. I've really grown quite numb to these types of losses over the past five years. Strange enough, in a weird way I have come to expect them.

Ohhh well. It's just a game.

Have a great weekend everybody. Here come the Sox.

Go Bulls.

No comments: