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Lacking
By Mike | April 20, 2007
I don’t have any specific facts to back this up, but one thing that the Cubs always seem to lack that pennant winning teams have is a some first or second year player that no one outside of their fandom has heard of that has a breakout year. The Cubs never seem to have a rookie that does anything impressive.
This year could be different. Rich Hill seems to have all the makings of a bona fide star. Of coarse he still has plenty of time to get that ERA up, but so far, you can’t ask for more than you’ve gotten out of him. Ryan Theriot also has the opportunity to become a major star if they could find a way to get him into the lineup every day.
So now that they’ve got their dark horse portion of the winning formula, what is their problem? I don’t know. I look at their lineup and can’t see why they aren’t scoring at least 5 runs a game, yet they’re lucky if they get three. Ted Lilly who I thought was overpaid coming into this year, as he was the benefactor of larger than normal run support last year is seeing the other side of that equation this year. He’s allowed six hits and three runs total in his last two starts, yet the Cubs have only scored one run in that time and Lilly only has two L’s to show for his better than expected performances.
I think they need to move Soriano out of the number one slot. Sure he’s fast and steals a lot of bases which you like in you leadoff guy, but he also hits for a power and you’re giving up potential runs when he leads off the game with a homer rather than if someone (Theriot) was on ahead of him. Ideally Theriot or Pie would lead off and Soriano would be second or third, with Lee right behind him. Imagine Soriano, Lee and then Ramirez in the middle of the lineup. How about this for a lineup…. Pie, Theriot, Soriano, Lee, Ramirez, Barret, Murton, Izturis, Pitcher. If DeRosa or Theriot can play short then I would put DeRosa in instead of Izturis.
Not time to panic yet, but the current lineup is certainly frustrating me.
Topics: Baseball, Chicago Cubs |
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