/ Lou the dragon slayer
Before We Get Ahead Of Ourselves
The Cubs completed a four-game sweep of a team that by all accounts will be lucky to win 65 games. Soriano has feasted on subpar pitching and it seems that he has broken out of the career long slump that he was mired in.
Great, now do it against Philly.
Look, I’m encouraged by a few things, the explosive offense of the last game, the pen buckling down in games 1-3 (especially game 3), Lou finally managing, but I want to see it again, not just for a fleeting moment against the worst team in the majors.
Again, they still have wins, so a sweep is something to be happy about, but I’m by no means satisfied. Tomorrow we’ll look at what the Cubs need to do to win this thing, which all surprisingly falls into Lou’s lap.
The pressure to at the very least maintain the status quo with a split is on. Cub nation would love nothing more than a sweep of their own, but with a sputtering offense still trying to find its identity, that seems highly unlikely. The Cubs rely on strong starting pitching, an ok bullpen, and the HR ball to win games. While this would be a nice strategy if they were an AL team in 1989, they aren’t and its 2009.
Lou needs to outmanage LaRussa, plain and simple. The Cubs have done less with more than any team this year, and it comes down to under performance and the manager. Lou expected to ride this team to another division crown, but the Cards are refusing to comply, and now Piniella is faced with the most important challenge of the season.
“The biggest of which may be this; Is this season the schizophrenic means to the ultimate end of a championship, or are the Cubs destined to be also-rans, a team much like 2004, complete with all the teases, injuries, unlikability and disappointment?”
YO MEDIA
If you’re going to call for a Lou blow up then don’t get mad when the players blow up too. All I’ve heard this whole week is that Lou should show some fire, Lou needs to blow up, Lou needs to get pissed. How did that fire work out with Zambrano? With Dempster? How does the Gatorade machine feel about the fire and the passion?
Baseball is a sport where you need to be calm and focused, not yelling all over the place. Why is it that people said that Milton Bradley was too crazy for this locker room yet Lou Piniella needs to fire it up with some good ole fashioned crazy?
Why can’t they just concentrate on playing better baseball? Lou didn’t really have a volcanic eruption last year and the damn team won 97 games! This is nonsense, this fire and the passion crap that Chicagoans love.
I hate it in my baseball team! I don’t want fire, I want wins!
© 2009 The Flying Mexican | Mauricio Rubio Jr.
