LWIB and An Offensive Outburst.... Finally

LAST WEEK IN BASEBALL

In this segment each week, I'll highlight the biggest story of the previous week.

In Opening Week, the obvious choice for biggest story is the slow (and I mean SLOW) start of the Detroit Tigers who have yet to win a game so far tuis season.

A lot has been made of their offense coming into this season, and on paper it is certainly fomidable. It has yet to make itself known as of yet, however. The pitching was supposed to be the question for this team, so people are getting a little worried due to the slow start the offense has gotten off to.

In my opinion, this lineup will produce (even with the injuries they've suffered early). Offense often starts out slower at the beginning of the season, partly because of the colder weather prevelant in many ballparks this time of year.

It's only one week, Tiger fans, no need to step off of the ledge yet.

YESTERDAY'S CUBS GAME

HOU 7 CHC 9 F

The Cubs offense woke up finally, culminating in a 5 run 7th inning that helped knock out Roy O and gave him his second loss in as many games.

Kosuke Fukudome continued his blazing start and Derrek Lee went 4-4.

Kerry Wood got his second save in as many opportunities.

This game also gives us our second INTERESTING COMMENTARY entry from Astros color man Jim Deshais.

"With that hit, Reed Johnson is now batting 2.000."

Normally I would let something like this slide, but only if you recognize your mistake immediately and correct it. The Astros broadcasters continued as if nothing odd had happened. A player batting 2.000 should cause some follow up one would think, considering that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE! Just saying.

Yesterday's Other Games...

TB 6 NYY 3 F

BOS 2 TOR 10 F

KC 4 MIN 6 F

CWS 5 DET 3 F

CLE 1 OAK 6 F

SEA 4 BAL 6 F

TEX 1 LAA 2 F

SF 4 MIL 5 F

PHI 3 CIN 4 F

WSH 4 STL 5 F

LAD 1 SD 4 F

NYM 5 ATL 11 F

PIT 3 FLA 7 F

ARI 7 COL 2 F

Today's Games Already in Progress

Cubs give Carlos Zambrano his second start he'll be going against Brandon Backe who came back at the end of last season from Tommy John surgery and is now the Astros second starter.

Enjoy your games.

Cubs Defense Gives One Away

Some ugly play late led to an Astros win in the first matchup between these rivals (more so to me because I'm surrounded by Astros fans, luckily the real ones, not the normal ones who are the biggest fairweather fans in all of sports, although I spent a few years surrounding by that kind as well).

Rich Hill pitched well for the Cubs, as he so often does. Every year he gets better and better.

The Astros had a good young pitcher going as well, Chris Sampson, who always looks amazing when he faces us, yesterday was no exception.

It wasn't until the seventh that the Cubs could get anything against him, but a nice little rally and a two out single by Geovony Soto tied things up at 2.

Jon Leiber came into the eight inning and promptly caused a ground ball to Mark DeRosa that should have been out one. Instead, Berkman was safe at first on the error.

The next ball was a grounder down the third base line just barely fair. A double at worst until Soriano misjudged it's direction badly and it bounded off of the wall past the Cubs bullpen and into left field behind Alfonso. A double turned into a triple and Berkman scored.

A sac fly brought in Tejada and the Astros got both their runs right back due to bad defense.

DeRosa tried to make up for his error with a homer in the ninth, but it was too little too late as the Astros held on for a 4-3 win.

They face off today at 12:05pm CST.

The only other game I watched in part yesterday was Rangers verse Angels.

TEX 11 LAA 6 F

Question, when is getting 6 runs in the bottom of the ninth not enough?
Answer, when you are losing 11-0.
The Angels comeback attempts, while valient, fell well short in a game where Ben Broussard tried to prove me wrong by hitting a grand slam. Keep it coming Broussard, I still think Salty should be playing first.

Yesterday's other games...

CWS 8 DET 5 F

SEA 4 BAL 7 F

TB 13 NYY 4 F

BOS 3 TOR 6 F

KC 3 MIN 4 F

CLE 3 OAK 6 F

SF 4 MIL 13 F

ARI 8 COL 1 F

PHI 8 CIN 4 F

PIT 4 FLA 5 F

WSH 4 STL 5 F

LAD 7 SD 1 F

Today is the season premiere of TWIB aka This Week In Baseball.

Tomorrow will be the blog premiere of LWIB aka Last Week In Baseball wherein I will look at the results of last weeks games and give my thoughts. We're still efforting Jennie Finch.

In the meantime, enjoy Today's Games.

Cubs Win, Cubs Win, Cubs Win!

The Cubs found the win column yesterday, although it started pretty scary. The first two Milwalkee batters reached and found their way to second and third with no one out. Dempster in his first start since early 2005 found himself in trouble right off of the bat. He got a fly ball from Fielder to Kosuke, and I thought we were going to get to see his amazing arm.

He got the ball in quickly, but not quickly enough as right before the ball reached Soto (the catcher) Richie Weeks slammed into him, taking him to the ground. The ball went right through the spot that Soto had just been inhabiting and Weeks scored. As the ball was bounding around behind home plate, Tony Gwinn Jr. came around to score as well.

It was a clean play, just good baseball, but I don't like how Kosuke got charged with an error. His throw was perfect and if Soto didn't get taken down like a practice dummy at a self defense class, Weeks would have been out.

Oh well, it turned out not to matter as the Cubs found their bats thanks in part to a flip at the top of the lineup. Soriano moved back into the one hole, Theriot (or The Riot) moved back into the two spot and both got their first productive days at the plate.

Dempster (that first inning notwithstanding) was very good, and Kerry Wood notched his first career save. There will be many more where that came from K Dub.

A great game, but we can't dwell on it too long, cause the Astros are coming to town.

Once again a 1:20pm start at Wrigley which you can watch in Texas on Fox Sports Houston (probably in your sports Alternate channels if you're in the Metroplex) or in Chicago on Comcast, or on MLB.TV (as always).

Other games I watched in part yesterday...

WAS 7 PHI 8 F 10

Washington started out looking to stay undefeated by scoring 5 runs in the first. Unfortunatly they gave up 6 runs in the sixth. The team that had been getting the walk off runs lost on a walk with the basesloaded. A walk walk off, if you will.

HOU 2 SD 3 F

Shawn Chacon pitched far better then I thought he would and might have gotten the win if there had been any offense, but apparently the Stros used it all up yesterday. Trevor Hoffman makes up for the blown save yesterday by putting the Astros away in order in the 9th for his second save on the season.

Other games yesterday...

CWS 2 CLE 1 F

KC 4 DET 1 F

LAA 5 MIN 4 F

TOR 2 NYY 3 F

ARI 2 CIN 3 F

COL 0 STL 3 F

PIT 4 ATL 3 F

Today's Games

Okay, a story that's been circulating lately that we should probably talk about,

Moises Alou says, "I wouldn't have caught it anyway."

Does this mean all should be forgiven?

Look, I've always said that it wasn't fully the fault of The Fan Who Shall Not Be Named. If Alex Gonzales (whose name we will mention and then boo loudly at) makes the next play, all is forgotten and forgiven. No big deal.

But that didn't happen, and it is partly because of the play that Moises didn't make.

If everyone gets out of the way and Alou doesn't catch the ball, then it's not a big deal. Foul balls go into the stands and aren't caught by the fielders all of the time.

However, it looked like Alou was going to make this play (or at least might) and then a fan grabs it and erases any chance for Alou to make the play.

Whether or not Alou could have made the catch isn't really what is at issue. The issue is how the team and that entire stadium reacted after he didn't.

A sense of inevitability was felt throughout the stadium, only something completely unforeseen could derail the Cubbies now.

Then that play happened and every player and everybody in that stadium began to feel doubt. Alou was going to catch that and a fan, one of OUR fans got in his way. This can't be good.

If everyone gets out of the way and Alou doesn't catch it, it's routine and everyone goes back to their spots not giving the near catch in the stands another thought. Alex Gonzales makes the next play for a double play and the innings over. The Cubbies have a 3 run lead and only need 3 outs to face the Yankees in the World Series.

Of course, Alex Gonzales (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!) should have made the next play regardless, and he's the real enemy in my opinion, but we can't just forget the part played by The Fan Who Shall Not Be Named just because Alou says five years later he wouldn't have caught it.

If he felt that way he should have made it clear immediately instead of reacting how he did, because it certainly seemed to everyone on that field, in that stadium, and everyone watching on television that he would have made that catch, and certainly that he believed he would have made that catch.

Oh well, let's forget about it for now and get ready to enjoy some baseball today rather then think about baseball 5 years ago.

What an Ugly Day, Good Thing it's a Long Season

Sports Center is showing all of the poor play again. It's just as ugly the next morning.

It is currently dark, dreary, raining, and very high winds outside. The weather is prettier then the Cubbies played yesterday.

Everyone has an occasional bad day (although you'd prefer it not be the whole team on the same day). It's still early and everything will be fine so long as the sloppy play doesn't become a habit.

So long as the Cubs think before they act, things should be fine. They have too much talent to play like they did yesterday too often.

Looking forward to today, the Cubbies return to WGN with a 1:20pm CST start.

Ryan Dempster, the Cubs closer for the last couple of seasons, returns to the starting rotation, so that should be interesting to watch.

Dave Bush starts for the Brewers. If you're a Cubs fan looking for some much needed good news, Bush is 1-5 in 8 career games (and 0-2 at Wrigley).

Back to yesterday's games.

The Cubs game is the only one that I watched in full, since I was watching the return of Dirk in a must win game for the Mavs. So, games I watched some of...

TEX 1 SEA 4 F

My boss's boy, Ben Broussard, went deep for the Rangers only run. My opinion, despite the shot, is that Broussard should be coming off of the bench and Jarrod Saltalamacchia should be up with the big league club playing first base, but I'm not the Rangers General Manager, so what can you do.

HOU 9 SD 6 F

The Astros finally found their bats yesterday, especially in a 4 run 9th inning that brought them from the edge of defeat to their first win of the season.

The other games yesterday...

KC 4 DET 0 F

BOS 5 OAK 0 F

CWS 2 CLE 7 F

TB 6 BAL 9 F

TOR 5 NYY 2 F

LAA 1 MIN 0 F

WSH 1 PHI 0 F

ARI 5 CIN 6 F

NYM 13 FLA 0 F

PIT 2 ATL 10 F

COL 3 STL 8 F

SF 2 LAD 1 F

What I noticed from yesterday's action was the fact that there were 5 shutouts yesterday and that two of them were 1-0 games.

On the flip side, 6 teams scored at least 8 runs in a game yesterday.

That's baseball though.

Here are today's games.

Enjoy your baseball.