Bay Area Bash:April 29th-May 1st

When you go into a series and plan on throwing out your 3 best starters, you have to feel good inside knowing that, while you might not win all 3 games, you should be at least be in the games. Unfortunately, a quick 6 spot in two innings will usually kill that feeling, fast. A quick exit by Mark Prior and I'm left wondering if this is going to be the year he turns into the CY Young candidate that he can be, or if he's still a couple of years away. We don't do much in the 7-1 loss against the Giants and with Jason Schmidt taking the mound for game 2, the hope that we will come away from this road trip .500 is slowly starting to slip away.

The early season battle of the CY Young candidates lives up to it's hype as Carlos Zambrano and Schmidt are locked in a pitcher's duel for most of the game. But when the Giants pull Schmidt in the top of the 8th, Sammy Sosa promptly greets reliever Joe Nathan with a solo homer to tie the game and you just know that once Nathan was out of the game, we would start hitting. Sadly, we didn't and we lose in the bottom of the 10th on a walk-off double by Jose Cruz Jr and suddenly, instead of hoping to finish the road trip at .500, were now hoping to not be swept. Before I go into the results of game 3, let me recap how we did the first month of the regular season.

We finish the month 14-13, sitting in 3rd place, 2 games back of the division lead. Are top hitter for the Month was Mark Grudzielanek, hitting .331 for April. Sammy Sosa led the team in homers and RBI, with 15 and 30, respectively. On the pitchers side of things, Carlos Zambrano and Mark Prior each have 3 wins and you can't help but wonder how many wins Zambrano might have if he didn't miss two weeks. Zambrano sports the lowest ERA of the starters with a 1.61 and him and Matt Clement are the only ones with ERA's under 4.00. Clement, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior are all tied for the team lead in K's with 37, but you have to give the edge to Wood, who has done it in 28 innings. On to game 3.

And with it now being May, I guess the weather is warming up enough for Moises Alou to start coming to games everyday ready to hit, as he sends a 2-2 fastball in the 1st inning over the fence for a 3-run homer. But that wasn't enough as Kerry Wood showed what happens when bad control and patient hitters meet on the playing field, giving up 5 walks in 5 innings to go along with the 4 earned runs. But at least he earned a no-decision out of it as Damian Miller hit a 3-run homer in the 8th inning to help propel the Cubs to an 8-6 victory.

Colorado comes to Chicago for a 3-game set and will throw out Aaron Cook and Nelson Cruz in games 1 and 2, and since Jason Jennings will miss the rest of the season, they will pitch Darren Oliver for game 3. Matt Clement, Shawn Estes and Mark Prior will hope to get this 9-game homestand off to a great start....

Rocky Mountain High: April 25th-April 27th

We had hoped that arriving in Colorado might help us wake up some of the slumping bats on our team, but it seems that the cold weather in Denver only cooled them off more. Despite having 10 hits, we can only manage 2 runs against the Rockies and lose 4-2. Hitting into 3 double plays will surely kill a lot of momentum and did for us this game.

A 7-4 win in game 2 saw Moises Alou hit his first homer of the season and also saw Mark Grudzielanek continue his great start. Besides the walk-off grand slam earlier, I haven't talked much about Grudz and it hasn't been because of him not playing well. That's quite the opposite, in fact. He has the top batting average on my team, has played an error free secondbase so far on the season and is on pace to hit 20 homers. Not bad for a guy hitting in the second spot in the lineup. The other bright spot? Corey Patterson, who hit a solo homer and stole 4 bases during the game, giving him 9 on the season.

Sosa hit his 14th homer of the season during game 3, but that turns out to be the only run we score in a 2-1 loss. Matt Clement got his 4th quality start of the season, going 7 and a third innings and only giving up 2 runs on 3 hits will striking out 7. Even with the win, the news wasn't good for the Rockies as their starter Jason Jennings left the game in the 5th with shoulder trouble. A couple of days later, they revealed that he has a torn Labrum and will be gone for the rest of the season. Kyle Farnsworth got the other two outs and that performance got him a one-way ticket back to minors. Will we see more of him this season? Probably.

After the loss, we head to San Francisco to take on Barry Bonds and the Giants to close out the month of April and then this road trip. At 1-2, were hoping to at least take 2 of 3 to finish the road trip at .500. The Giants are 14-11 and throw Damian Moss, Jason Schmidt (4-1, 1.21 ERA) and Kurt Ainswoth. Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano and Kerry Wood will do the pitching for the Cubs.

Quick Stop In Chicago: April 22nd-April 24th

Now, if you have been following along at home and I hope you have been, you would know that so far in this replay, the Chicago Cubs are 11-8 so far on the season. The real life Cubs were 12-7, so were only a game off their pace. Not a bad start to the season. Now, onto the series with the San Diego Padres.

Before the 2002 season, Matt Clement was just a starter in the majors. Now, saying someone is "just a starter" isn't really as much of an insult as it seems. Only about 150 players or so a season can start and there are many, many more people out there who wish that they were. But something in that 2002 season clicked for Clement as he had his best season as a pro. He reached a career high in strikeouts, a career low in walks, WHIP and opponents average against. And it looks like he may turn 2003 into a better season even still. Clement goes the distance, striking out 12 Padres while cruising to a 9-2 victory. Hee Seop Choi provides some power again, slugging his 5th homer in 6 games and is starting to make me rethink the platoon and whether he should start everyday. I'll continue to trot out Eric Karros vs lefties, but I'm not sure how much longer that will continue.

We come out flat for game 2 and were not in contention the entire game as we lose easily 8-1. We managed only 3 hits off Jake Peavy and the Padres bullpen as Mark Prior falls to 3-2 on the season.

After scoring 6 runs in the first 2 inning during game 3, Wood cruises to a 7 inning win, striking out 12 along the way. He did walk 3, which he will do from time to time, but for the most part, pitched about as well as one would expect him to pitch. So far one of the most disappointing sights on the season is LF Moises Alou. Alou is only hitting .225, with 0 hrs and 11 RBI on the season. Hopefully he can get hot soon and start to hit like we need him to.

With the win, we head into Colorado with a 13-9 record, but in 3rd place, a game behind both Cincinnati and Houston, who are tied for the Division lead. The Rockies are 11-11 coming into this series and with Colorado being the homer paradise that it is, maybe a couple of our bats can wake up during this 3 game set. Sergio Mitre will be starting game 1 and will be sent to the minors after the game as Carlos Zambrano is due back during the San Francisco series. Kyle Farnsworth will come up and take his place till we get to San Fran to give us an additional arm in the bullpen. Shawn Estes will pitch game two and Matt Clement will go in game 3. Colorado counters with Aaron Cook, Nelson Cruz and Jason Jennings.

Repeat Of Last Week? April 18th-April 20th

In game 1 of our series vs the Pittsburgh Pirates, Hee Seop Choi continues his hot hitting, homering in his 3rd straight game, Mosises Alou looks to finally start to break out of the slump that he started the season in with a 3 for 4 evening and Mark Prior gives up only one earned run over 7 innings to grab his 3rd win on the early season with an 8-3 victory. If only all these could be this easy.

The second game of the series isn't that easy, as we fall 7-5. Kerry Wood goes 5 and a third, and leaves with a 4-3 lead. But Dave Veres gives up a 4 spot in the 7th to all about assure us of not getting the win. Wood has now lowered his ERA to 6, a huge improvement from where it was at after 2 starts. Let's hope we can get the third game and at least come away with a series win to try and keep pace with the Astros.

After failing as a pinch-hitter the night before and ending his homer streak, Hee Seop Choi decided to try and start another one, hitting an early 2-run homer to give Sergio Mitre a 4-2 lead. Joe Borowski comes in later to get the final 4 outs to nail down his 4th save of the season and we head into tomorrow's off day on a high note winning 2 of 3 from the Pirates and moving into a first place tie with the Houston Astros.

We head home for a quick 3-game homestand vs the 6-13 San Diego Padres before heading out west on for 6 games against the Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants. Matt Clement, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood will be taking on Brian Lawrence, Jake Peavy and Adam Eaton.

Wrapping Up The Homestand: April 14th-April 17th

Before the first game of the 4-game set with the Reds, it was announced that Sammy Sosa was named NL play of the week. Sosa hit .478 with 7 homers, 16 RBI and 10 runs scored. Way to go Sosa! In the first game of the Series vs the Reds, Sosa sends a 3rd inning pitch from Jimmy Haynes into the crowd to help stake Kerry Wood to an early 3-0 lead. And the right Kerry Wood finally showed up, striking out 12 in 7 innings before handing it over to the bullpen with a 4-0 lead. 2 innings later, we squeak out with a 4-3 victory and Joe Borowski has his 3rd save on the season. The win improves our record to 6-1 at home and puts us a game behind the Houston Astros for first.

Game 2 finds us falling to the Reds 5-0 as Danny Graves continues to baffle us when he takes the mound. In the early season, he's 2-0 with a .60 ERA. Hopefully we won't have to face him very many times from here on out. The hitting star for the Reds was Russell Branyan, who is a classic 3-outcome guy. Usually when he's up at the dish, you'll get one of 3 results, strikeout, walk or homerun. In 52 plate appearances so far, he has 5 walks, 5 homeruns, 10 strikeouts, just under 40% of his results. And it will probably only get higher.

Game 3 featured a duel between Matt Clement and Chris Reitsma, with both pitchers leaving with the score tied at 2. In the top of the 10th, Ken Griffey, Jr hit a solo homer to put the Reds up 3-2, with their closer Scott Williamson on the mound for the bottom half. Alex Gonzalez coaxes a walk as does Aramis Ramirez and Corey Patterson of all people. With the bases loaded and Mark Grudzielanek at the plate, I figured that I may either at least get the tying run home or Grudz will only make 1 out, and still get a chance to have Sosa come up with a couple runners on. But neither of those things happened as Grudz took the first pitch from Williamson and drove it over the left field fence for a walk-off Grand Slam and a 6-3 victory. That's the thing about baseball, the most unlikely guys will sometime come up big and win you a ballgame.

With a chance at the series victory vs the Reds on Thursday, we send out Shawn Estes to take on former Mets Wunderkind Paul Wilson. Wilson, Jason Isringhausen and Bill Pulsipher were all hot young prospects coming up in the Mets organization in the late 90's, earning the nickname Generation K. Of the 3, Wilson remained the only starter of the group as major arm injuries piled up for all 3. Isringhausen is the closer for the St. Louis Cardinals, so I'm sure I'll see him a few times this season. But back to this game. After Sosa's 10th homer of the season in the 1st, Estes shut down the Reds until the 6th and 7th innings, where he gave 5 runs before being pulled with one out in the 7th. A Hee Seop Choi's solo homer in the 9th makes it 5-3, but that's as close as it gets as we split the series with the Reds and move our record to 9-7, thankfully still only a game back to Houston.

After the loss, we travel to Pittsburgh for the first time all season to take on the Pirates. We swept them last week, so hopefully we can make it out of Pittsburgh without them doing the same to us. We have Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and Sergio Mitre going for us, against Salomon Torres, Dennys Reyes and Kip Wells.

Pirates and Brooms: April 11th-April 13th

Well, Joe Borowski had his first save situation of the season today and he passed, barely. Coming into the 9th, Shawn Estes had thrown 8 innings of shutout ball and I should have realized, Eight is Enough. But, with Estes pitching so well, giving up only 4 hits and 2 walks, I figured, with 101 pitches, it was OK to have him come out for the 9th to try and get a shutout out of it. Back-to-back singles later, I decided that was enough and brought Borowski into the game to have him try and nail it down for the Estes and help get Estes his first victory of the season. And he did. But not before giving up a 2-run double to Brian Giles. But two k's later, and were back at .500 and Borowski has save #1.

Despite winning the second game 7-2 and moving above .500 for the first time this season, the victory against the Pirates wasn't all sunshine and dandelions. For example, Prior pitched, poorly, again. For the second time this season, in 3 starts no less, he only goes 5 and a third, giving up 5 walks. He did strike out 8 and only gave up 2 runs, but I need him to start going deeper into ballgames. Alex Gonzalez will more than likely get suspended for making contact with an umpire after being thrown out for arguing balls and strikes, which is a baseball no-no. And I had to bring in Joe Borowski to pitch to one batter in the 9th to save the game after the bullpen loaded up the bases with 2 outs. He got the out and the save, but I would like to not have had to use him. The good news is that Sosa hit two more homers, giving him 8 on the year, in 11 games.

Now, playing in the National League, you get the downside of not being able to use the designated hitter like they do in the American League. This unfortunately can lead to pitchers getting injured, either from being hit by a pitch, swinging too hard or having to run the bases. Which is what happened today to Zambrano. After legging out an infield single, Carlos needed to leave the game since he had tweaked his knee. It looks like he's going to be out a couple of weeks while he rests up, which is a shame, since he's gotten off to a 3-0 start this season with a 1.36 ERA. Losing Zambrano for a couple of weeks puts a damper on the 5-3 win. Sergio Mitre is being called up to take Zambrano's spot in the rotation for the next 15 days, so I expect him to make 2 starts or so and then be shuttled back to AAA.

The Reds are coming to town for 4 games next and we'll look to continue our 3-game winning streak and move further away from the .500 mark. Kerry Wood, Sergio Mitre, Matt Clement and Shawn Estes are taking the mound to help continue the winning ways and they'll be faced by Jimmy Haynes, Danny Graves, Chris Reitsma and Paul Wilson.

Opening Day, Again :April 8th-April 10th

At 21 years old, Carlos Zambrano, or Big Z as his teammates like to call him, still hasn't reached his full potential. You can see it's there and you have a feeling that one day, something is going to click and then he might become the type of pitcher you build your team around. This season just might be it for Z, as he shuts down the Expos for 6 innings on his way to victory number 2 on the season. Sure, it would have been nice to see him stay out there longer, but throwing 103 pitches through 6 innings is enough for me and that's why God created relievers. And the bullpen did it's job, holding the Expos to 1 baserunner over the next 3 innings to seal the 4-0 victory. Sammy Sosa's 4th homer of the season provided all the runs the staff needed for the victory today, but I have a feeling that won't always be the case.

Even before the Cubs came back and tied the game in the bottom of the 9th at 6 all, I decided that I would try and look at the bright side of things for this game. Like, for instance, the fact that my team was down 6-0 going into the bottom of the 7th and they never gave up. Like Sosa hitting a 3-run homer in that 7th inning to cut the lead to 6-4. The bullpen finishing the game with 6 scoreless innings of relief. Kerry Wood lowering his ERA from 13.50 to 11.88. All those things were positive things to look at and this was before Sosa hit a second 3-run homer, this time in the bottom of the 11th to send the Cubs to their 3rd victory in a row. That was Sosa's 6th homer of the season and he now has 13 RBI, 12, in his last 3 games. And were one-game away from making us above .500 for the first time all season.

Now, before I continue, let me tell you a little bit behind how I manage. Once a starter hits a 100 pitches, I'm the type of person that doesn't like to keep them in. I prefer to not burn out my pitchers and cause them to get injured, because finding a starter to replace an injured pitcher isn't exactly easy. That being said, I did break my rule with Matt Clement. After using my bullpen like they were robots the past few games, I realized that I needed to have Clement throw a few more pitches past 100. And it cost me. No, Clement didn't get hurt, but he did give up the tying run in the 8th while throwing his 115th pitch. Not a lot, but it is more than I would have liked. But the only fresh arm I had in the bullpen was Joe Borowski and that's because we haven't had a lot of save opportunities (0) so far this season. And after losing the game in the 10th inning, that decision cost us our chance to go over .500. We outhit the Expos 9-8, just couldn't do anything with them, losing 4-2. We do have our first winning series on the season, so hopefully we can build on that with Pittsburgh coming to town for 3.

The Pirates come in sporting an identical 4-5 record as us, so one of us might be over .500 after this series. Salomon Torres, Kris Benson and Dennys Reyes will take the mound and face Shawn Estes, Mark Prior and Zambrano. Funnily enough, earlier I was talking about the Ramirez/Bellhorn/Hernandez situation and how I decided to handle it. Well, the Pirates have both Jose Hernandez and Mark Bellhorn, trading Tike Redman to get Hernandez.

Seeing Red...: April 4th-April 6th

If you would have told me that the Cubs would hit 3 homers in the first game of this series, I probably would have asked how many runs we won by. However, if you had told me that my starting pitcher would walk 6, give up 3 homers and only throw 49 of 100 pitches for strikes, I definitely would ask if Shawn Estes stole the uniform of Matt Clement. Sadly enough, neither on of those was correct as the Reds walk away, literally, with a 9-5 win. Sosa, Grudzielanek and Choi provide the homers, with Sosa and Grudz going back-to-back in the first to provide Clement with a 2-0 lead. But a 3-run homer by Adam Dunn in the bottom of the 1st erased it and going back-to-back himself with Russell Branyan in the 3rd pretty much iced the game for them. Not a great game by any means. Oh yeah, that homerun by Sosa was #500 for his career. Congrats Sammy.

Before game 2, I decided to go ahead and pitch Shawn Estes instead of Prior or Zambrano, opting now to try and get them the rest instead of throwing them out there. Prior wasn't ready to go, which is a little disappointing since it was on his normal rest, so let's hope this doesn't become habit forming, as going with a 6-man rotation is not something I have in mind. And starting Estes wasn't really that bad of a move. He pitched mediocre, which is really all I expect out of him and besides Zambrano, pitched the best of my 5 starters right now. And that's bad. Of course, I say mediocre, because he only gave up 4 runs in 6 innings. One less run and it would have been a quality start. Still a loss, since we went down 4-2, but almost a quality start nonetheless. By the way, if you've seen my offense, could you tell them I'm looking for em? Thanks.

A 12-4 victory in the final game of the series saves us from being swept by the Reds and provides for some interesting numbers. Let's go beyond the boxscore shall we? The 4 homeruns hit in the game are almost as many as we had all season (5). Sosa goes 3-4 to raise his batting average to .217 and the 8 runs we scored in the 7th inning is 29% of all the runs we had scored all season. Coming into this game, we had scored a total of 16 runs.

Up next is Montreal in Chicago which marks opening day at Wrigley Field. Maybe some home cooking is exactly what the team needs to get on it's winning ways. Montreal comes in with a 4-2 record and throws Javier Vasquez, Zach Day and Tomo Ohka at us. We'll be countering with Zambrano, Wood and Clement. I smell a sweep!

Hope Springs Eternal: March 31st - April 3rd

Opening day finally arrives and we head into a 3 game series in New York against the Mets. The pitching matchups for the 3 games should be Mark Prior vs Tom Glavine, Carlos Zambrano vs Steve Trachsel and Kerry Wood vs Jae Weong Seo. Hopefully we can get the season off to a great start and take the opening series. By the way, my owner thinks I should finish around .500. Thanks for the confidence, boss.


Not much to say about game 1 as the Cubs just came out flat. Two errors by the defense, 5 walks by Prior and a 1-11 day by my 3,4 and 5 hitters and we can't do anything against Glavine and the Mets bullpen, losing 4-2. The lone bright spot was Damian Miller going 3-4 with 2 RBI.

Game 2 goes a lot better, with us evening our record at 1-1 behind a 7-1 victory. Carlos Zambrano goes 8 strong innings, scattering 8 hits over 8 innings, only giving up the one run while striking out 5. But Miller is the star again, this time going 2-4, with a 1st inning grand slam that put the Cubs ahead. He added a Sac fly in the 5th to give him 5 RBI on the night and 7 on the season. Not bad for a bottom of the order guy.

With an above .500 record hanging in the balance for game 3, usually sending out Kerry Wood is a blessing. At least it is when he can find the plate. And to his credit, he only walked two hitters during his outing. Of course, he only lasted 3 and 1/3 and gave up 5 runs. The Mets turned around and returned a 7-1 game on us, leaving us 1-2 to start the season. Not exactly where I wanted to start off the season, but it's early and we have a lot of baseball left in our tanks.

Next up is a series against the 2-1 Cincinnati Reds in Ohio. Clement goes against Chris Reistma in game one and I'll probably be sending out Mark Prior for game two against closer turned starter Danny Graves. Game 3 is undecided right now for me as Shawn Estes is scheduled to start, but I want to see how Zambrano is feeling and whether he can go on short rest. The Reds should be sending out Joey Hamilton, but that's a undecided as of now also.