I’m a big fan of the NCIS series that is on CBS and USA. The lead character is a former marine played by Mark Harmon. His name is Gibbs and he is the all-American badass with a legendary intuition. NCIS spun off of JAG, so at the end of the JAG series Gibbs is going after the lead man there, Commander, Rab. During interrogation Rab asks Gibbs if he can tell a man is lying just by looking in his eyes, to which Gibbs calmly and cooly asserts that he can. A pretty epic stare down ensues and the rest is TV history.

The point of that story is this, sometimes you can tell what is going on in a man just by looking at his eyes, and while I don’t usually subscribe to that junk in the sports realm it can be true in the rarest of cases.

Including the case of Lou Piniella.

It’s no secret that the Cubs are built to win now. They have no farm system left after multiple acquisitions, they don’t have the contracts nor the players to trade to get that farm system, and really, they don’t want to.

They want to win right now, this year, because of that whole 101 year curse thing.

It led to the perplexing deal given to Alfonso Soriano, the trades for Rich Harden, Derrek Lee, Kevin Gregg, the signings of Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster and the ever famous signing of Milton Bradley.

Everything from the past, including the ghosts of yesteryear and those of 2003/2004 are coming to a head this year. Because you see, fellow Cub fans, this is the last real year the Cubs have a legitimate shot at winning the whole damn thing for a very long time.

There is no next year for this team. Every starter from this year on offense will be over 30, save one Geovany Soto, and the window is shutting as soon as the Cubs finish this season. The aging pitching staff coupled with an old lineup will not be around for an extended run, and Soriano will only worsen in left with age.

And Piniella knows it. It’s in the way that he’s acted, the books he’s read over the long winter, the press conferences, it’s in him. He knows that this is the last shot for an old Cubs team that will not be getting any younger if the Cubs fail to win a World Series Crown.

That’s the ultimate goal, the only goal, and to sound perfectly cheesy and meatballish, it’s in Lou’s eyes, those sad droopy eyes that seem to lose some glimmer with every loss, with every Soriano strikeout, with every home run Kevin Gregg allows, with every injury, with every bullpen walk, with every Milton Bradley incedent, it’s growing fainter and fainter.

The old man is tired of this garbage, and everyone knows it. This is the last dance.

Really Soto, weed?

as seen and read here

As the Cubs exit Detroit without a win many Cub fans have to wonder if now is the time to give up on this team. Mired in a funk, the Cubs are going to have to self evaluate where they are as a team.

I still hold the position that this team still isn’t playing up to where they should be, and while it’s not right to say that they played well this series, they were never really out of any game.

It’s a small consolation prize, perhaps the only thing that the Cubs can take from this game is that Carlos Marmol needs to find his command and stop dipping his elbow when releasing his slider, causing him to miss high or wide.

The only good news came from everyone else in the division losing, with the Reds suffering perhaps the biggest loss as Dusty Baker has claimed another young pitcher in Edinson Volquez who will be shelved indefinitely with elbow inflammation.

Cubs fans should also note that relying on career minor leaguers is not the way the Cubs will find themselves atop the division come October. Soriano showed life in his bat, but he will need to go on a crazy hitting binge to lift this team to anything besides its first sub .500 record since he was signed.

Derrek Lee had his hitting streak snapped, but he is still driving the ball with authority, and Ted Lilly had a bad game.

A series sweep is not the end of the world, it is a major setback. It will be interesting to see how the Cubs react to the sweep, if Hendry will go out and make a move, if another coach gets canned, but the one thing the Cubs cannot do is press.

Because if you press or try too hard in baseball, you’re toast.

The sound of Jake Fox’s bat sounds crisp, and as old timey scouts like to say, it just sounds right. He’s fooled me plenty when it comes to figuring out if the guy got enough of a pitch to jack it out of the park, and he has a nice fluid swing.

As a prospect people were very excited about his power, and this year as a 25 year old he tore up the PCL hitting .421 in Iowa.

He’s not going to amount to much. I love Jake Fox. I love his swing. I love the way the ball jumps off his bat, but he hits very few line drives (evidenced by his small sample sizey 9% Line Drive rate) and 20% of his at bats end in strikeouts. He has looked good in limited playing time this year, he even knows how to put on his mitt(!), but he has no defensive position, and as evidenced by a frusturating loss to the Tiggers where the defense let the Cubs down, he can’t be on the Cubs.

He’s a DH, nothing more, and he has only one tool, albeit a very dangerous one. He can hit with the best of them, but he is not valuable to the Cubs.

ON BEATING THE IOWA CUBS!

JAKE FOX IS IN AWE!