Swept by the friggin Cubs
I can't believe it.
The Cardinals continue their 0-for-the season in Chicago against the Cubs this weekend, being swept in a four-game series in Wrigley. (As another blogger at Bleed Cubbie Blue pointed out, they're not just 0-7 vs. the Cubs in Chicago, they're 0-3 at Comiskey/US Cellular too, for an 0-10 @ Chicago experience so far)
It even has that same blogger making a joke that the Cubs have petitioned for the Cubs to play the remainder of their season against the 1st-place Cardinals.
It wouldn't be so bad if the Cubs were just the hot team that outperformed the Cardinals this weekend. But it seemed like the Cardinals played scared and made mental mistakes that are uncommon to Tony La Russa's team. On the Saturday game, the first two Cubs runs were scored in situations where NEITHER should have, if the team had made the expected plays.
The first run was scored by John Mabry, who almost ran through a stop sign at third. However, Ronny Cedeno(I believe) also ran through second on his way to third, hanging Mabry up. Scott Rolen received a throw at third, and tried to tag Cedeno, and failing there, didn't see that Mabry was hung up, allowing him to advance home with no throw.
Is this Rolen's fault? Not really, but the rest of the infield should have been SCREAMING at him to throw home.
The next run resulted from the player at first(don't remember who) basically being picked off first, and while he was in a rundown, Cedeno took off from third and was able to score, which also allowed the player at first to advance to second base.
These are NOT St. Louis-like plays. These are the plays you expect to see the Cubbies make in a Cardinals/Cubs series. But the Cubs seemed to play very good baseball this weekend and the Cardinals occasionally did, but had enough lapses to prevent them from winning a single game.
Stats of the day: In the NL, the Cardinals are 2nd in batting average, behind the Dodgers, with a team BA of .274. They are also 3rd in OBP(.343), but are 9th in Slugging(.425) and 7th in Runs Scored(512). This is NL only, so with only 16 teams, they are obviously one of the most proficient teams at getting on base, but are only average at scoring those runs. Surely you've all noticed this too, with the Left on Base(LOB) stat that Fox Sports Midwest now runs on their between innings scoreboard. The Cardinals always seem to get around 7-9 LOB while scoring maybe 3-4 runs.
Last thing to remember, for those who are very cynical or thing I'm being cynical: They're still in first place by 3.5 games and are the overall #2 team in the NL behind the Mets.
The Cardinals continue their 0-for-the season in Chicago against the Cubs this weekend, being swept in a four-game series in Wrigley. (As another blogger at Bleed Cubbie Blue pointed out, they're not just 0-7 vs. the Cubs in Chicago, they're 0-3 at Comiskey/US Cellular too, for an 0-10 @ Chicago experience so far)
It even has that same blogger making a joke that the Cubs have petitioned for the Cubs to play the remainder of their season against the 1st-place Cardinals.
It wouldn't be so bad if the Cubs were just the hot team that outperformed the Cardinals this weekend. But it seemed like the Cardinals played scared and made mental mistakes that are uncommon to Tony La Russa's team. On the Saturday game, the first two Cubs runs were scored in situations where NEITHER should have, if the team had made the expected plays.
The first run was scored by John Mabry, who almost ran through a stop sign at third. However, Ronny Cedeno(I believe) also ran through second on his way to third, hanging Mabry up. Scott Rolen received a throw at third, and tried to tag Cedeno, and failing there, didn't see that Mabry was hung up, allowing him to advance home with no throw.
Is this Rolen's fault? Not really, but the rest of the infield should have been SCREAMING at him to throw home.
The next run resulted from the player at first(don't remember who) basically being picked off first, and while he was in a rundown, Cedeno took off from third and was able to score, which also allowed the player at first to advance to second base.
These are NOT St. Louis-like plays. These are the plays you expect to see the Cubbies make in a Cardinals/Cubs series. But the Cubs seemed to play very good baseball this weekend and the Cardinals occasionally did, but had enough lapses to prevent them from winning a single game.
Stats of the day: In the NL, the Cardinals are 2nd in batting average, behind the Dodgers, with a team BA of .274. They are also 3rd in OBP(.343), but are 9th in Slugging(.425) and 7th in Runs Scored(512). This is NL only, so with only 16 teams, they are obviously one of the most proficient teams at getting on base, but are only average at scoring those runs. Surely you've all noticed this too, with the Left on Base(LOB) stat that Fox Sports Midwest now runs on their between innings scoreboard. The Cardinals always seem to get around 7-9 LOB while scoring maybe 3-4 runs.
Last thing to remember, for those who are very cynical or thing I'm being cynical: They're still in first place by 3.5 games and are the overall #2 team in the NL behind the Mets.
posted by Matt at 10:31 AM
3 Comments:
Nice work on the blog... Cubs own j00 this year though! You guys are now our only TWO sweeps of the season. I'm not happy they just traded away Maddux though. I met him when he was a rookie with the Cubs and he gave me my first MLB autograph.
grrrr... stupid Cubs.
That's pretty sweet to get that autograph though.
hehe, go cubs!
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