Tag Archives: Starlin Castro

I have a few things to say…

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You've gotta be bleepin' me!

It’s an angry Monday morning for Peter Verniere at Stats Central in Bucktown, home of Ozzie Guillen. First off, the Sox lost yesterday to a terrible team who sent out a terrible pitcher, oddly enough, Rodrigo Lopez’ fastball topped out at 90 mph, just like Big Z’s, the lone game the Cubs won at US Cellular Filed. Apparently, batting practice fastballs are too difficult for the White Sox hitters to take out of the park or into the gaps.
The Sox hitters were pathetic on Saturday, also, and should be embarrassed on how they played that last two games. Even as a series they hit only .204 with runners in scoring position and 10 extra base hits, the only team worse than that was the Cubs who hit .167 with runners in scoring position. Two days of frustrating baseball come to a close, and hopefully the Sox can find their offense at US Cellular Field this evening.

Now to the All-Star game, how is Paul Konerko not on the All-Star team? This is the first year I can say his numbers are little bit better than Miguel Cabrera’s numbers, so why not Paulie? Konerko has 21 home runs to Cabrera’s 17, he has 62 RBIs to Cabrera’s 56, and 170 total bases to Cabrera’s 166. Big Mig has 20 doubles to Konerko’s 12, is batting 9 points higher, and has more DUI’s then Konerko but that hardly seems worthy of giving Konerko a snub. Maybe the players wanted to make sure that Ron Washington had another rehab candidate to talk too, since the Josh Hamilton stories are really getting old by now.

I can just hear the conversation in the AL dugout now, “Mig drinking the scotch in front of the cops was all ballz.”

“Oh Ron, doing coke in the locker room during the game is pretty ballz, too! What are you doing after the game?”

Then it gets more insulting for Konerko and Mark Teixeira as there’s some dumb rule that only fulltime DH’s can take a DH spot on the roster, so instead of two better hitters sitting on the bench in DH spots there’s Big Papi and Michael Young, who combined have one less homer then Teixeira and only three more than Konerko.

Then the final insult, the players on the ballot with Konerko for the final vote, Victor Martinez, 6 homers and 46 RBIs, you must be joking! Next up, Alex Gordon, 10 homers and 46 RBIs, I see a trend starting. Adam Jones, 13 homers and you guessed it, 46 RBIs, and finally Ben Zorbrist? Really? Nine homers and 40 RBIs. Not one of these players are in the ballpark offensively with Konerko. Ridiculous!

At least, Carlos Quentin was voted in by his fellow players, as opposed to the Cubs only representative having to be picked by the NL Manager, Bruce Bochy, in Starlin Castro.

To sum it all up,  two of the top three AL home run and run producers [Konerko and Teixeira] are currently not on the AL All-Star roster. You’ve gotta be bleepin’ me!

Week Two letdown

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One thing that has been fun to watch thus far for AL Central fans has been the train wreck known as the Minnesota Twins. That’s one thing Smitty and I can agree on. For the Sox and Tigers you need to look hard to find some bright spots over the last week. I’ll let Smitty handle the Tigers, who climbed back to .500 for a day this week, but for Sox fans week two of the season has been a major letdown. The Sox started the week at 6-3 and have carried a lead in every game this year except for two. The Sox ended this week with a 7-8 record falling below .500 for first time this season, and looking to have things start clicking again like they did in week one.

Two more blown saves by Matt Thornton have lead to early panic among Sox fans, me included (see my panic button article, Santos or trade are the only options.) In fact, since I wrote that article the White Sox bullpen has quietly put together 10 innings of one run ball, pretty impressive for a team’s fan base that was calling for entirely new bullpen. I still think Santos should be given a shot, since he has 8.2 innings of scoreless baseball with 11ks under his belt this season. Those are closer type numbers. He even had a tryout in a one run game in the top of ninth on Friday. He struck out two and walked one in a scoreless inning of work keeping the Sox within one run going into the bottom of the ninth.

No one’s mentioning the bullpen because they had other things to complain about, the White Sox bats have seemed to go dormant and Juan Pierre has been thrown out stealing in his last five attempts. Gavin Floyd let up six earned runs on Saturday afternoon in a game where he did not really ever have his control. It was winter like conditions, but somehow that didn’t slow down the team from California. Getting out of town is probably the best thing for the Sox.

Meanwhile, the AL Central is still being lead by the Cleveland Indians at 11-4 with the Kansas City Royals just a game back.

If you’re a Cubs’ fan you can’t be too disappointed at the moment with a 7-8 record coming home to play San Diego starting Monday evening. The Cubs’ bullpen looked more like the Sox pen by letting up four runs in the eighth inning on Sunday to the Colorado Rockies. Ryan Dempster struggled again, but Starlin Castro had three more hits to continue his red-hot start to the season.

Some things have begun to stabilize in baseball, especially in the AL East where the Tampa Bay Rays rattled off six in a row and Boston has won two straight with some major offense. The Yankees continue to have starter issues as Phil Hughes has been sent to the DL with a “dead arm.” Also, the Baltimore Orioles have come down to earth, I wish the Indians would figure out what the Orioles have already; they’re not that good.

Hopefully things will turn around for the Sox this week.

2112

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Rush is playing at the United Center in about a week-and-a-half, but that’s not what 2112 references in the headline. It’s our Chicago baseball teams record after Opening Weekend. The White Sox have a 2-1 record in the AL Central while the Cubs sit at 1-2 in the NL Central. Both the Sox and Cubs played weaker teams in their division this weekend.

The White Sox looked like a completely different team offensively during their series against the Cleveland Indians, while the Cubs posted a win against the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that they  beat only five times in 2010. While both Sox and Cubs fans would like to be 3-0 this season, and both teams had opportunities to make that happen it was still a positive weekend overall.

The White Sox posted 24 runs and even though only one of those came on Sunday they looked more like the team fans were sold on last season that never materialized. Juan Pierre and Gordon Beckham set the table for the heart of the line-up to clean up. Adam Dunn has been effective to say the least. Carlos Quentin seems to be the CQ of 2008, and the starting pitching was progressively better each game.

On the negative side of things, Alex Rios does not have a hit yet and Will Ohman looks more like the pitcher that Cubs fans wanted to run out of town. He struggled again today and let the game get out of hand. The Sox went 9-9 against the Indians last season, so getting out to a 2-1 series win is a good start to the season. The Indians can still hit and might be better the next time the Sox see them with the return of Grady Sizemore later this month.

On the North Side those pesky Pirates got the best of the Cubs this weekend, but the good news is the Cubs took one. I watched bits and pieces of the Cubs this weekend and one thing that looked different to me was they seemed to have more fight this season. Marmol was lights out on Saturday and even though he took the loss on Sunday he didn’t pitch that poorly. Yes a walk lead to putting the winning run on base, but who would ever have imagined that clean-up hitter, Lyle Overbay, would bunt and two runs would score on a dribbler that barely made it past the pitcher’s mound. Unlike last season though the Cubs had the tying run at third base in the bottom half of the inning.

Matt Garza had 12 strikeouts; unfortunately he also had 12 hits, but left the game with a 4-3 lead on Sunday. Carlos Zambrano looked pretty solid on Saturday, but he left the game with a hand cramp. Always something with that guy. There’s no sophomore slump for Starlin Castro at the moment. He leads the team with a .615 batting average and looks another year smarter. Carlos Pena came inches away from his first home run on Sunday while Alfonso Soriano hit his first.

Aramis Ramirez may be hitting .364 at the moment, but he does not seem to have his power stroke, which could be a problem. The reason it’s a problem is the Cubs are counting on 30 home runs from Ramirez, not base hits. While he seems to be seeing the ball well enough he’s almost Bobby Abreu like at the moment; high average with minimal power. It’s only the first weekend but he should be watched closely as he is as much of wild card for the Cubs as CQ for the White Sox. Ryan Dempster pitched as poorly on Friday as he did in his last Spring outing. That can’t be a good sign.

Monday begins a new week in baseball and can lead to new things. The Cubs host the Diamondbacks tomorrow afternoon, while the Sox go to KC for a short two-game series on Tuesday and Wednesday before coming home to Chicago for their home Opening Day against the Rays. I’ll be there, as it will be my 19th opening day in 21 years. I know… “We’re happy for you!”

2011 off to a shaky start

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A disturbingly familiar scene played out at Wrigley Field again this weekend with the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates celebrating yet another series victory over the Cubs. The North Siders are now a befuddling 6-12 since 2010 against arguably the worst franchise in Major League Baseball over the last 20 years.

Things got off to a bad start on a miserably cold and drizzly Opening Day Friday.  I knew things were a little off when I had no trouble picking up what used to be the toughest ticket in town at the box office just an hour before game time. The pre-game tribute to the late Ron Santo was well done and the Cubs got an early run with Starlin Castro taking full advantage of Pittsburgh’s poor defense.  Dempster was cruising into the 5th when it all fell apart.  The crafty Canadian eventually gave up two crushing bombs, the first being a grand slam to Neil Walker followed two innings later by Andrew McCutchen’s two-run, final-nail-in-the-coffin blast. Why Manager, Mikc Quade felt Dempster was his best option with 114 pitches under his belt is beyond me, but I’ll hold off judging him too harshly this early in the season.

Though Saturday’s weather was a vast improvement, the Cubs offense started out as lifeless as ever, going down on seven pitches in three separate innings at the hands of the overwhelmingly mediocre Paul Maholm. Even more frustrating was yet another cramp-shortened outing by Carlos Zambrano.  Can someone please force him to eat a fucking banana and drink some water before his next start?  Fortunately, everything changed in the 8th when, once again, Starlin Castro sparked a offensive explosion that amounted to 5 runs and allowed Carlos Marmol to come in and strike out the side to clinch the Cubs first victory of 2011.

So with a renewed sense of optimism I flipped on WGN today to see Matt Garza’s debut as a Cub. Garza didn’t fully disappoint, fanning a career-high 12 batters, but giving up 3 runs on 12 hits isn’t exactly stellar.  A 4-run, middle-inning rally was fun while it lasted, but it was ultimately wasted as Marmol’s serious command issues and Castro’s poor decision making in the 9th cost the Cubs a victory and a series win.

This certainly wasn’t the start anyone not on the South Side was looking for.  Hopefully, Quade can find the same kind of magic he used at the end of 2010 to turn things around.  The schedule makers have done all they can to help by sending a chronically underachieving D-backs squad to Wrigley.  I don’t want to place too much emphasis on early-season series, but when you start the season with Pittsburgh and Arizona at home, you’ve got to think the Cubs should come out 4-2 at least.  After doing some quick math I realized nothing less than a sweep of the Diamondbacks will be acceptable at this point.

No. 47 Baby!

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The Rod Beck #47 jersey is on it’s way!  It’ll arrive just in time for Friday’s Cubs/Cardinals game so Pete will be able to see what he’ll have to be wearing on June 11th as a result of losing our Starlin Castro bet.

Speaking of Castro, he just went yard again tonight against the Rangers bringing his RBI total to 11 in his first 15 games and moving his avg. to a scorching .363.  It’s almost embarrassing how completely wrong PV was about the young superstar.  At this point, merely having to wear a Cubs jersey to the Cubs/Sox game doesn’t seem to even come close to atoning for his egregious error.  Perhaps getting a Cubs logo with a little #13 tattoo would be more appropriate?  The best part is the Pixies already wrote a song about it.