Well the series against the Braves sure didn’t go the way that the Cubs were hoping as they dropped the final two games of the series. The sad part of the final two games was the Cubs only scored one run in each game. The offense surely didn’t show up when they needed to as the final two games were both win able the way the pitchers threw the ball.
First it was a 2-1 loss on Tuesday night as Carlos Zambrano pitched on short rest as he filled in for Ryan Dempster who was placed on the disabled list with a broken right big toe. Yeah, Dempster broke his toe on the railing as he celebrated a Cubs victory. Just a break that went against the Cubs and Dempster.
Kevin Hart was re-called to take Dempster’s spot in the rotation and got the start on Wednesday afternoon. Hart limited the Braves to a single run but he was getting behind hitters all game long and really didn’t have as good of outing as his stats show. He allowed four hits and one run but walked five braves in just five innings of action.
Casey Kotchman took Angel Guzman deep for a solo home run in the sixth inning that put the Braves up 2-0. At that point, it was going to be hard for the Cubs to come back the way they were swinging the bat but Kosuke Fukudome did help out with a solo shot in the bottom of the inning to make the score 2-1.
However, in the ninth inning Fukudome made a mistake on a line drive that got by him that resulted in a rbi double for Martin Prado. Prado would advance to third base on the error by Fukudome and then score on a wild pitch by Kevin Gregg. Just a bad inning for the Cubs.
So the Cubs are playing like a sub .500 team which they really are at this point. Things just aren’t clicking for them overall. It’s either the pitching sucks and the hitters are on, or the hitting sucks while the pitchers are throwing the ball good. Things just aren’ matching up and things won’t get any easier as the St. Louis Cardinals will be coming to town for four games over three days. This is a huge series before the All Star Break. I suppose you could call it a make or break series at this point.
- Cliff
Cubs Blog
Cubs offense sucks it up one again