The Chicago Sun-Times (the Windy City’s equivalent of the Boston Herald) tells us that Theo Epstein’s grandfather co-wrote the screenplay for “Casablanca,” the heart-throbbing cinema event that defined America two generations ago. Alright, big deal — but it’s good to remember that when grandma toddled off to see it, Franklin Roosevelt was president, American soldiers were fighting the Japanese at a place called Buna . . . and the Cubs hadn’t won the World Series in 34 years.
That was a little less than seventy years ago: the Cubs still haven’t won the series, the Japanese are now our friends and this guy — who didn’t even play baseball in high school — thinks he’s going to rescue the Cubs. Ha! Think of that: the arrogance. The fact that Theo & Company recently had a pretty good run in Boston (in the junior circuit — and for a team named for the color of their hosiery, no less), doesn’t mean squat. These are the Cubs. The North Side Drama Queens. The Palestinians of the baseball world. They don’t win. Ever.
Which hasn’t kept Chicago from being excited. “Terrific news,” says Bleed Cubbie Blue. “This is about as good a news as we can get,” says The View From The Bleachers. “Epstein is worth the sticker price,” notes The Cub Reporter. Okay, but before Cubs fans anoint Epstein “A-Number-One,” the King of Chicago, they should remember that he can’t hit, pitch or field — and neither can the Cubs. And that’ll be true this next year, and the year after, and probably the year after that.
How do we know? Because it’s been seven years since the Nationals arrived in Washington, and this year they finished a game under .500 — which is about where they were when they arrived in town. Spontaneous demonstrations broke out in Washington at season’s end — because compared to where the Nats’ came from, one game under .500 looks and feels like success. The Cubs are worse, much worse. By mid-season of 2012, Theo will wonder what the hell he’s gotten himself into.
So while everyone in Chicago is calculating who goes, and when (and who arrives), Epstein’s first challenge has little to do with the team on the field. You don’t win without a strong front office and a patient fan base. Finding good young players and convincing Cubbiedom that this will take time (after 103 years, no less) will take some doing. And while he’s at it, he can deep six “the five B’s” — black cats, billy goats, Broglio, Brant Brown — and Bartman.
The “curse” (and how many are there?) is just an excuse. Truth is, the Cubs haven’t developed a good player since Mark Grace (Sandberg came via Philadelphia, and the Twins passed on Mark Prior to draft Joe Mauer), and team hasn’t brought in a good player from somewhere else since Andre Dawson walked into town. That should tell Theo something about the Cubs front office, which is as soft as a pillow. Always has been.
So if Theo is going to replicate for Chicago what he did in Boston — if he’s going to “play it again” — he can start with cleaning out the scouting stables. And he can tell Cubs fans to stop flying that “L” from a flagpole everytime they lose. Forget Brock for Broglio, forget billy goats, black cats and Brant Brown, forget Bartman and understand this — there isn’t anything lovable about losing.
Okay, okay. Enough of the negativity. It doesn’t take much to see that the problems the Cubs have don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but the greatest game I ever saw in my life took place at Wrigley Field on a hot August night in 2001. The Cubs were in the middle of a pennant race and won the game — and the fans nearly tore the place down. So Theo, listen up: if you thought there was pressure in Boston, wait’ll you get a load of this.
The word around the Nationals’ clubhouse is that Jayson Werth, struggling through a season-long slump, is finally starting to hit. The Nationals’ everyday right fielder — and headline off-season free agent acquistion — is hitting .306 in his last thirteen games. Indeed, Werth showed some pop at the plate on Wednesday night, sending a typical short-stroke liner into Wrigley Field’s left field bleachers for his fourteenth dinger. But Werth’s home run wasn’t enough to beat the Cubs, who took advantage of their own long ball to down the Nationals, 4-2.
The game’s non-story was Ross Detwiler, the team’s constant experiment on the mound, who pitched (in skipper Davey Johnson’s phrase), “just okay.” Lefty Detwiler gave up three runs and seven hits in five innings of work, the biggest knocks against him coming on long balls from catcher Geovany Soto and journeyman Reed Johnson. Detwiler running buddy Collin Balester (they’re both familiar with how to get from Syracuse to Washington — and back), was less than mediocre in an inning of relief: Balester gave up a home run to Alfonso Soriano to put the game out of reach.
And so it is that the Nationals’ search for more pitching among a group of yesteryear’s youngsters (Detwiler, Balester, Garrett Mock, Shairon Martis, J.D. Martin and Craig Stammen), continues, but without the kind of premium (“he’s a keeper”) results. With the next round of young arms waiting in the wings (Tom Milone and Brad Peacock — and perhaps one or two others), Nationals’ fans are starting to clamor for some new faces, and wondering how long it will be before Rizzo, Johnson & Company run out of patience.
Washington and the Rockies rapped out 33 hits in scoring 22 runs on Saturday — but the Heltons were just too powerful and downed the Nationals, 15-7. This was a poor outing for Livan Hernandez (now 6-11 on the year) who gave up nine hits and seven runs in just 3.2 innings.
The big bats of Colorado showed up in force: Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki were a combined 5-8, while normally light hitting catcher Chris Iannetta was 4-5. The Nationals bullpen was also ineffective. Tom Gorzelanny, Todd Coffey, Sean Burnett and Henry Rodriguez gave up a combined ten hits in 4.2 innings of work.
The Nationals fought back in the top of the sixth, scoring four runs to bring the game to within three, at 10-7. It was the only strong point of the Washington showing. “I was really pleased with the team,” skipper Davey Johnson said, after the loss. “We battled back and scored a bunch of runs with two outs, and that was a good sign. Stuff like that happens here.”
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Cincinnati Reds were swept by the Mets at the end of July, but then took three of three from the Giants — a sure sign the team was still in the thick of the N.L. Central race. But since then the Redlegs have tanked. They dropped two of three from the Astros and have now dropped two in a row to the Cubs . . .
They look awful. Yesterday in Chicago (which has a seven game winning streak, though no one knows exactly why), Dusty Baker’s boys were eaten by Carlos Zambrano, who gave up six hits in six innings and homered off Johnny Cueto in the second inning. Zambrano (whose homer was a straight-away-to-center shot), is now 9-6 . . . Cueto couldn’t make it out of the fourth . . .
This is what the Nationals must have had in mind when the team came out of Florida after Spring Training: the lead-off hitter would get aboard and the big bats further down in the line-up would hit for power and average in providing the surge needed for a victory. That’s what the Nationals did, finally, in Colorado on Friday, banging out 15 hits to support the steady pitching of Jordan Zimmermann. The result was a much-needed 5-3 victory.
The Nationals’ barrage was led by a revived Rick Ankiel (who was 3-5, and seems to be settling in in the lead-off spot) and Ian Desmond, who was 4-4. The Nationals were able to chip away at the Rockies, scoring single runs in 4th, 5th and 9th innings. Zimmermann, meanwhile, produced another quality start (after two previous shaky outings), throwing 5.2, but giving up only four hits while registering eight strike outs.
The turning point in the game might well have come on a pick-off play engineered by reliever Tyler Clippard. With Chris Nelson aboard with nobody out in the bottom of the 8th and Ian Stewart at the plate, Clippard picked off Nelson for the first out. Moments later, Clippard struck out Stewart. The pick-off ended a potential late-inning rally from the Rockies. Jordan Zimmermann notched his seventh win of the season, Clippard got his 28th hold and Drew Storen his 28th save.
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Ramon Ramirez had just about had it with Shane Victorino, so in the 6th inning of last night’s Phillies-Giants match-up, he decided to hit him. The resulting scrum was hardly the donnybrook of yesteryear, but it was sill well outside the bob-and-weave that characterizes these sorts of things. When it was over, Ramirez, Victorino and Giants’ catcher Eli Whiteside were tossed, with suspensions and fines sure to follow.
The Washington Nine are notoriously mediocre on the road — and the road includes places like Colorado where, on Thursday, the Nationals’ bats once again proved vulnerable to good (but not great) pitching. The Colorado Rockies, suffering through their own sub-.500 season, beat the Nationals easily, 6-3, extending the team’s road woes this year. The Nationals have lost ten of their last 13 on the road.
The Nats first inning was promising, with Rick Ankiel, Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse reaching base — but the team was unable to capitalize (scoring just one). It would be another eight innings before the Nationals threatened, sending six hitters to the plate before succumbing. So which is it: did the Nationals have a poor game at the plate — or was Rockies’ starter Esmil Rogers so good that the Nats Nine just couldn’t touch him?
The explanation, courtesy of Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson, is that while Rogers was good, he was nothing special. The problem is the hitting: “We had the right guys up there,” Johnson said. “We just didn’t make it happen. We picked it up in the ninth inning, but it was a little too late.”
If there was a piece of good news that Nats’ fans could take from the loss, it was that long reliever Ross Detwiler proved “serviceable” (Davey Johnson’s term) in his first start in since forever, throwing five complete innings while giving up five hits. But the Rockies got to Detwiler for one in the fourth, and then one more in fifth, before piling in on Ryan Mattheus in the eighth.
The Rockies’ eighth included a walk (to Todd Helton), a Troy Tulowitzki double, an intentional walk, a single, a hit by pitch and another walk. This was hardly Murderers’ Row, but it meant that the Nats would have to climb back into the game from a 6-1 deficit. Despite scoring two in the ninth (Ramos singled, Ankiel singled — and Ryan Zimmerman doubled), the deficit proved just too big to overcome.
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The Rockies are eight games under .500, and you have to wonder why. There are teams in baseball who’d kill to have the middle of their line-up: Seth Smith, Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki and Todd Helton. But, while that daunting roster is what the Arizona Diamondbacks faced on April 1, it’s not what the Nationals faced yesterday . . .
Chien-Ming Wang still isn’t ready for prime time. The former Yankee and new Nationals’ righthander struggled through five innings against the Braves yesterday, giving up seven hits and two runs through five innings — and the Nationals fell to Atlanta in the final game of their three game set, 6-4.
The Nats fought back, rapping out a four run sixth inning, with a walk by Danny Espinos, singles by Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse, a Beachy wild pitch and a Jayson Werth home run. But four runs weren’t enough to secure the victory. Despite the loss, pitching coach Steve McCatty was upbeat on Wang. “He had better sink,” McCatty said after the game. “The offspeed pitches were a little flat. He got hurt on that. If he makes a play in the fifth inning — no damage.”
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Jason Marquis debuted for the Arizona Diamondbacks yesterday, and it didn’t go well. The former Nats’ righty gave up ten hits and seven runs over four innings, as the Snakes fell to the McCoveys, 8-1. Marquis wasn’t the only thing traded to Arizona; so too was the explanation for why he does poorly: his sinker wasn’t sinking . . .
Here’s the story in Cincinnati and, for Reds’ fans, it sounds all too familiar: a well-stocked, heavy hitting and young team just can’t seem to put it all together and struggles through a season of lost opportunities. That was the story in the “lost decade” after Cincinnati’s last world championship, and Reds fans fear it could be the story now.
The thing that has Reds’ fans depressed is that this might be the best Reds team that’s been fielded in the last decade or so — and perhaps better than last year’s Central Division winners. The Reds have an MVP at first base (Joey Votto), and All Star at second (Brandon Phillips) and another at third (Scott Rolen) and bunch of long ball swingers in the outfield — masher Jay Bruce (21 home runs), better-than-just-okay Jonny Gomes, uber fill-in Chris Heisey and behemoth Drew Stubbs.
That’s a lot of lumber and it shows: the Reds are first in the N.L. in runs scored, fourth in homers, fifth in batting average, and fourth in on base percentage. In spite of this, the team is struggling. They were shut out twice this week by the Pirates, scoring just four runs in four games. Everyone was slumping. When that happens to good teams, the skipper shifts gears by juggling the line-up and hopes that his pitching staff begins to produce. The problem in Cincinnati is that Dusty Baker doesn’t have much of a pitching staff — or, rather, Cincinnati pitching is all potential and no performance.
The lone exception to this has been Johnny Cueto, who turned in a stellar performance yesterday against the Bucs. Nothing-but-strikes righty Cueto, with the semi-Luis Tiant wind-up, threw for six innings and gave up only four hits — a vindication of a Reds’ front office that has waited for him to be a star. The undersized and underrated righty might now be ready. Finally.
