The Cubs lost again today, this time falling 8-7 to the Giants, and dropped three of four in the series. That is the bad news, or the good news, if you are like me and find the failure comical at this point. The good news is, the team made this past series of failure fun to watch. The typical low scoring game, usually driven by terrible offense, didn’t make an appearance. Instead, the Cubs are competing, and playing decent baseball.
After wetting the bed against the Reds, I figured late night games against the Giants would lead to yet another rock bottom. Instead it seemed to wake up some of the Cubs’ hitters, and has made for enjoyable baseball four games in a row. Even though three of those games resulted in losses, it generally wasn’t the result of frustratingly poor play. If this is how the Cubs want to lose the rest of the season, fine with me.
I didn’t think we ever would have seen this Cubs team recover from that Pat Burrell grand slam, but they did it today. Sadly, that is the most impressive thing this team has done in two months. It would be awesome to see them scare the Cardinals like this all weekend.
Other random Cubs thoughts
Starlin Castro, star, also maybe ROY. He had four hits today, and had 10 in the Giants series. His .320 batting average would be second in the NL to Carlos Gonzalez, but he doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify yet. He has a .816 OPS now, in his age 20 season.
Tyler Colvin, one trick pony. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really fun trick, but if he can’t sustain that 23% HR/FB rate, he’s not going to last long in the big leagues. The commonly used Rick Ankiel comp makes sense to me more and more every day.
Alfonso Soriano might have a hot streak coming. He’s been having a rough month so far, but it’s been long enough without a homer binge that one has to be coming soon. It looks like he will end up having the typical Alfonso Soriano season, which is nice to see after his 2009 disaster.
Is it bad that I haven’t even noticed Lou and Derrek Lee missing? Actually, I do miss Lou’s post game comments, and Lee’s return means Hoffpauir goes back to AAA, so it will be nice to have them back tomorrow.
Just seven more weeks before we get to speculate about 2011. What fun.