Yet Another Deep Breath

OK, so maybe it’s not so bad as it seemed at first, this crisis of losing Lee for the first half. Not that the Cubs didn’t listlessly drop a pair, but there was no weekend freefall. Greg Maddux outmaneuvered the Cardinals lineup twice around, and they won the afternoon game today. If we think about it, there’s a good chance the Cubs would have only won 1 out of 3 in St. Louis even if Lee was in the lineup, especially with Glendon Rusch and Jerome Williams starting. Things might have unfolded exactly as they would have otherwise.

Maybe. Let’s not give Dusty a free pass for being the first manager in the history of baseball to double switch a healthy #3 hitter on a hot streak out of the lineup in the fifth inning to get in a reserve hitting under .250, leaving a guy hitting under .150 as your best option to bat third when the lineup turns over again. To compound it, he fed us some bullsh-- about how it all makes sense if you look at it over a couple of day span rather than just in the game itself.

No, actually, it doesn’t. It makes no sense no matter how you cash it out. The pitcher’s spot was not due up any time soon, the lineup was sabotaged, and it compelled him to pull Murton in another double switch later in the game. Effectively and literally Baker removed the Cubs second most productive RBI men this season -- behind only Barrett, minus Lee -- while down only a few runs. At best, he might have said, “I played a hunch and it didn’t work out.” Or he could have just deflected the question if he didn’t want to admit that it was an error. Make no mistake: this was a series of tactical and strategic errors, and as the percentages would point the move yielded nothing but 12 outs in 13 batters, and one man on base only because Isringhausen dropped a gimme covering first.

There’s no guarantees the lineup would have produced anyway, however, and so I’ll just sigh and hope for the best like an ostrich in a lightning storm or something. Well, maybe I’ll bristle a little bit because this is the first time Dusty pulled this crap since last season; this was the first time he blatantly made a blundering move. We have reason to be concerned now that Lee is out of the lineup because all of a sudden there is greater maneuverability for Dusty to play with, and we have seen this tinkering backfire much more often than it has worked out. Here’s hoping Dusty got such machinations out of his system... but he burned us enough last year to imply otherwise.

Still, there are reasons not to leave the reservation. The Cubs still have two all-star caliber hitters in Ramirez and Barrett, and Juan Pierre is one of the best leadoff hitters in the game. Pierre has only struck out 6 times, and has yet to ground into a double play. If we can presume that Cedeno will continue to often bat second and Walker third, these two have only 5 Ks apiece and also have yet to ground into a double play. This means that the run opportunities will at least be there. The lineup is still less leaky than it was last season.

And if ever there was a situation geared to rookies’ advantage, it’s one like this. Those guys have no room for listlessness – Cedeno and Murton are still playing for their chance to become permanent big leaguers. Marshall and Guzman, and maybe Rich Hill, are still pitching for the same chance. All the rookies are still trying to get noticed, and that is a good thing.

Then there’s Greg Maddux. 4-0 in 4 starts, with an ERA under 1.00. Enough said. Actually, it’s more like there is no way to say enough, so I’ll leave it at that.

A problem is that Houston is running away with the Division. Berkman and Ensberg are squaring up on the ball as well as anyone in the league. They’re plus 7... and that’s without Clemens, who may very well come back in a couple of months. Scary stuff. Still, with or without Lee there is nothing the Cubs can do about the Astros until early June when they finally meet up.

So life goes on. Baseball goes on. All is not lost. Certainly the Cubs chances are much more tenuous, but they still match up fine against Florida, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and the Diamondbacks – the next 4 series – all of whom are in last place except for the Brewers, and they're not in the cellar only because the Pirates are worse. There will be no gimmes now, even against these teams, but for a while at least the Cubs should not be shouldered aside even as things stand.

Plus, I have other writing to work on, so I don’t have time to brood. And the Sopranos are on. Meanwhile, I’m playing Social Distortion, and perhaps it’s not coincidence that right now the album has turned to “Story of My Life.” (I can only assume it was not named after Helen Keller’s book titled the same... but go ahead and make a Helen Keller joke if you think I’m blind in all this.) Anyway, the song is quite fitting:

Yeah, good times come and good times go
I only wish the good times would last a little longer
I think about the good times we had
And why they had to end


So I sit at the edge of my bed
I strum my guitar and I sing an Outlaw love song
Thinkin' bout what you're doin' now
And when you're comin' back


Life goes by so fast
You only want to do what you think is right
Close your eyes and it's past
Story of my life.

Yep, as a Cub fan circa 2006, and circa whenever, that’s exactly right. Story of my life. Maybe it's another season with some of the same, but there are worse ways to ride life than to enjoy a flawed but yet still fun baseball team. The story will go how it will go, and there ain't nothing else to do but follow along because after all, that's what we do.