Posts tagged ‘Cubs’

Same teams, same city, same stakes. Different ballpark? All the difference.

All the City Series managed to confirm beyond reproach was the one thing already widely assumed: both Chicago teams are fantastic in their home parks, but something gets lost in translation when they go on the road. How else do you explain Jose Contreras, with the 9-run meltdown at Wrigley, come back six days later and go into the 7th inning against the same lineup in an equally (if not more) hitter-friendly ballpark? Conversely, Ryan Dempster was pounded for 8 runs (7 in one inning) five days after making the Sox look silly…while the Sox bullpen which couldn’t close a screen door last weekend looked like an even better version of the crew that helped win a World Series in 2005. I guess if there is some destiny at work to get the Sox and Cubs into a Crosstown World Series…we better pray the American League wins the All-Star Game.

I said last Friday that I liked the attitude, the sense of urgency coming from the Sox clubhouse after the win at Dodger Stadium on Thursday. They knew what they were coming home to, not just three games that mean infinitely more in the stands than on the field, but three games at home that they needed to have while two teams charging hard in the division kept getting hotter. Nothing changed as the Twins took two of three from the Brewers and and the Tigers swept the Rockies to climb over .500. That’s the true importance of this weekend; sweeping the Cubs was awesome, but picking up a game on the Twins and keeping the Tigers at bay was far more significant in relation to the big picture.

Said big picture really kicks in now, as the Sox welcome supposed divisional heavyweight Cleveland to Comiskey with an opportunity to bury them in the standings, before matchups with Oakland, Kansas City, and Texas to close out the first half. Sweeping an excellent Cubs team that looks like the class of the National League was a nice acheivement, but it will only matter if the Sox take the renewed momentum and start cleaning up where it counts. In 2005, Ozzie told the team “Don’t be happy just to be in the playoffs - win to stay in.” Now would be a good time to say, “Don’t be happy just to be in first place”.

I don’t really want to spend one minute longer thinking or writing about the past weekend. The end result is what matters, as it always does. A loss is one loss and a win is one win no matter when it occurs or who it comes against. It just feels like a lot more when the team involved with the Sox is the Cubs, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (usually, it’s just a plain stupid thing).

However, despite the fact that only one set of fans left the weekend happy, there was one tidbit that caught my eye in the evening media roundup that I’m sure would leave fans of all stripes amused:

Best media moment: A Sun-Times columnist asking security staffers Saturday to safeguard him from one of his colleagues, who asked for a conversation. Request denied.

So, Northside, Southside, Westside, Black, Blue, ARam or JD, there’s one thing any true Chicagoan would agree on, this incident serving as live, indisputable proof:

Jay Mariotti’s a big-honking doofus.

What’s the matter Jay, you afraid Rick Telander’s gonna poke you with his pen?

Hey, everybody else is doing it! Want proof? Click here & here to get the expert analysis before moving on.

Now, I will fully cop before things even start to being biased. The one thing I stipulate is that I tried to gauge all performances and pick the team in what I call an “immediate context” - as in, if MLB declared that Chicago had to pick one baseball team to play a game tomorrow, a game Chicago had to win in order to continue its existence as a city, who would I want on it? As such, current (like, say, the last two weeks) performances trumped fond memories of Opening Day. So, without further ado, the humble picks of Soxcast for who mans each position on a Chicago Dream Team…

Catcher: AJ Pierzynski, White Sox. Probably the overall toughest call; Geovany Soto is in the middle of a fine campaign and so is the Polish Wonder. How then to break the tie? If we need just one guy to throw out a runner late, we’d probably be making a defensive switch for Soto. But as it is, AJ’s left-handed swing has produced a .308 average and .442 slugging percentage along with the veteran savvy needed to handle a pitching staff everybody had written off before the season started. Soto may very well be on his way to fame as the next great power-hitting catcher, but for this exact moment our vote is with AJ.

First Base: Derrek Lee, Cubs. He kind of wins by default now, doesn’t he? Even if Paul Konerko hadn’t been on the DL, it wasn’t much of a contest. Neither player got off to the start they desired, but Lee has rallied himself while Paulie has battled injury and hard luck throughout the year. Here’s hoping PK gets it back on track after he returns.

Second Base: Alexei Ramirez, White Sox. So many candidates - Ramirez, Juan Uribe, Ronny Cedeno, Mark Fontenot, Mark DeRosa, Pablo Ozuna…wait, not Pablo. But remember, we’re picking the Dream Team that would go out and represent Chicago tomorrow, and we’d be foolish not to pick a guy who’s batting .390 in the month of June to go with some fine (though still rough) glove work. DeRosa’s our first man off the bench if needed.

Shortstop: Ryan Theriot, Cubs. Theriot has the bat, Orlando Cabrera the glove. And yet, there can only be one. Tie goes to the younger in this instance, but given another two weeks Cabrera would probably unseat the Cajun; OC’s average has risen every month, rising from .216 (April) to .265 (May) to .370 so far in June, why’ll Theriot has slipped a little each week from his .340 hot streak in the first month.

Third Base: Joe Crede, White Sox. I take it back. This was the toughest call. Ramirez has a better average, Crede better power stats, and they both have a sub-.950 fielding percentage (Crede the more egregious violater right now with 13 errors.) This is one position where I think my Sox bias is fully coloring my choice, but remember I’m picking the team as if it was one that I were betting the farm on to win a game tomorrow - and if you watched the 2005 playoffs you know how clutch with the bat and the glove Crede can be when it’s all on the line.

Outfield: LF - Carlos Quentin, Sox; CF - Reed Johnson, Cubs, RF - Jermaine Dye, Sox. Quentin wins in left by default with Soriano on the DL, otherwise he’d have been the fourth man. Nick Swisher’s got all his “gamer” bravado and Brian Anderson finally stopped pouting and started playing, but Johnson has them both solidly beat straight up. And in right, it was again the most recent performance that tipped the scales - JD is hitting .292 with 5 HR in June, while the big import prize Kosuke Fukudome has struggled with a .241 clip and is now fluxing thru the Cubs’ lineup.

Starting Pitcher: Many solid candidates, but there can only be one. Remember, I want this guy ready with his ‘A’ game for tomorrow. It probably would’ve been Zambrano, but that MRI throws a wrench into it. Vazquez has concerned me in his more recent starts, and the youngsters Gallagher, Floyd, and Danks have exceeded expectations in their respective roles. Buehrle has been stellar in 6 of his last 8 outings, but he will always be prone to a big inning. So, the pick is…wait for it…Ryan Dempster. I’m shocked too. But Dempster’s been as solid as anybody in the NL and doing it while often waiting for runs to come in behind him. In an emergency stand-by role I’d have (in order) Buehrle, Jose Contreras, & Zambrano pending the test results.

Closer: Bobby Jenks, White Sox. Yeah, I know, we’re all supposed to give Kerry Wood extra credit for doing something nobody counted on him to do - make it two whole days without a freak gasoline fighting injury (Zoolander reference, for those who don’t follow). But Jenks’ has been every bit as dependable in closing 16 of 19 opportunities alongside a 1.91 ERA. If we’re putting together a whole bullpen, I definitely want them both (save for strikeouts, the numbers are almost identical for each man) but my own biased fan opinion tells me to put the ball in Bobby’s hand needing three outs for a championship - because he’s been there before.

Here we are at Memorial Day weekend, and the Cubs and Sox are both in first place. ESPN’s latest Power Rankings elevated the Cubs to the top spot and the Pale Hose to fourth on the heels of their eight-game winning streak that pushed them 3.5 games ahead of the Twins in the AL Central.

Before we got too giddy with the idea of both Chicago teams in the playoffs, let alone the possibility of a Red Line World Series, remember there’s four full months of baseball left to play. The expected giants of the AL Central are stuck in sleep-mode, and while there haven’t been a ton of signs that they’ll be able to wake up and run away from the pack like all predicted they would, I certainly wouldn’t discount the possibility. Right now, the Sox even at 26-22 should be, like Kenny Williams, looking back at a handful of games they’ve already squandered that could’ve really put the pressure on their divisional opponents heading into the summer.

Since Ozzie Guillen’s drastic changes to the lineup - AJ Pierzynski and Carlos Quentin rising to 2 & 3, Thome and Konerko dropping to 5 & 6, along with increased playing time for Alexei Ramirez and sliding Nick Swisher to the eighth spot, the Sox have gone 8-2. More importantly, they have gotten a quality start in 10 of the last 11 games. Joining Mark Buehrle in the “If it weren’t for bad luck, he’d have none at all” category is John Danks, who has had a total of 8 runs scored on his behalf in his four losses (and hasn’t gotten much more support in his wins, even when including the 13-run outburst in San Francisco last Sunday when most of the offense came after he left the game). Bottom line: Sox pitchers are the real deal. Sox offense? I’ll get back to you.

On the heels of the eight-game streak that stretched between the West Coast trip and a home sweep of the floundering Cleveland Indians, the Sox bats have been put back in the deep freezer against Joe Saunder and Jered Weaver of the Angels. It was a disturbing return to the early-May trend of atrocious hitting and starting pitchers turning into their own worst enemy at the most inopportune moment - the Angels scored in only one inning against Gavin Floyd on Friday, and the second and third runs came via two walks, a single, and consecutive hit batsmen. They scored in just one inning against Danks on Saturday. Five runs in 18 innings and the Sox couldn’t win either game.

Of course, before running for the nearest ledge, it’s helpful to remember this Sox team has already outplayed the expectations and people have been saying since mid-April that their pitching staff would come back to earth. They can’t say that now. Meanwhile, the offense that should’ve made some strides by plugging in Cabrera & Swisher has looked to the young Carlos Quentin to carry the load. As we move into summer, the Sox have playoff-caliber pitching. To justify the dreams of an all-Chitown October, they still need to complete the quest for consistent offense.