Aramis needs to stop stroking his cock and start swinging some wood and knocking some balls around. There's a dick joke in there somewhere, I just can't find it. Also: penis. BTW, googling his name and finding pictures like this is why i heart the interwebz. Best, Series. Of. Tubes. Ever.

First, we need Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez to start hitting.  They are the ONLY weak link in our lineup, which sucks for us considering that they are supposed to be our two biggest run producers.  We have 6 guys in our lineup hitting over .300.  That’s literally every position player except D Lee, Aramis, and the pitchers’ spot.  People are getting on base, and they’re not getting driven in.  It’s a massive hole right in the middle of our lineup.  If you want to point a finger at why we’re a losing team, the only logical direction is at the two of them.  It’s the reason why our starters are getting no-decisions, it’s the reason why our bullpen has struggled under the expectations of holding slim leads, or keeping us only a few runs down with no chance for the offense to catch up if we’re behind more than a couple of runs.  It’s the reason Zambrano is in the bullpen.  It’s the reason we called up a 20 year old kid and asked him to carry more of the load than a 20 year old should (and yet he’s not buckling under the pressure, but more on that later).  It’s the reason Lou has had to juggle our lineup several times since the season began.  It’s the reason were already thinking about next year.

So what do we do?  This year, all we can do is hope that Lee and Ramirez turn it around in order to give us a shot at the division.  That’s not too far off for Lee, who is usually a slow starter.  In fact, he had a good week offensively and raised his average about 20 points.  Aramis is another story.  He doesn’t seem recovered from his injuries, and given the amount of time he’s spent on the DL in his career, he might be breaking down completely.  But another reason was hinted at by Len and Bob on the air a few weeks ago: he’s not listening to Rudy Jaramillo’s hitting instruction.  Rudy’s reputation as the best hitting coach in the game should be enough credentials, but if you needed more evidence of his ability to get the best out of hitters, you only need to look at what he’s done to bring back the old Soriano that he used to instruct in their days in Texas together.  If Aramis is ignoring his advice while trying to find his swing coming out of injury, than we should bench him until he either figures it out on his own or agrees to listen.  There’s no room on our roster for someone to be so stubborn while not producing.  We don’t have the luxury of allowing him the time it would take to find his groove without any help.  Right now his VORP (Value Over Replacement Player for the non-nerds) is -11.4.  What that means is, offensively he creates 11.4 less runs than the average replacement player.  Just to let you know how bad that is, there is only ONE PLAYER WORSE in all of MLB, Brandon Wood of the Angels.  So, as long as we replace Aramis with literally any other player in all of baseball, we will get better.  So what we need to do first, is bench Aramis and replace him with Chad Tracy until he figures it out (while sending Jeff Baker to the minors to make room).  Then, we use whoever is more effective out of those two until Josh Vitters is ready, which might actually be right now.

Ace's don't throw tantrums, they throw gems... often.

Next, we need to stop this stupid Zambrano-in-the-bullpen experiment.  The only reason we did it is because we had a gap between our middle relief and our closer which was constantly giving up runs.  But why Z?  What not Gorzelany?  And if we were scoring more runs with a decent middle of the order, would that even be that big of a problem?  On top of that, if no one on our current staff can get it done, than promote someone from our minor league system, like Cashner, who will do better.  If the veterans can’t do it, you might as well give the kids a shot.

But all of that is only a prescription to how to make us respectable this year, when we know the best this team can possibly do is win the division (that was proven in ‘07 and ‘08).  So how do we get better for the future?  Simple, we do nothing.  By that I mean, we build from our system, something the Cubs have never done in my lifetime.  This is the first Cubs era I have ever remembered that properly invested in our system, from proper Scouting Directors like Tim Wilken, who drafted all of those young, talented Rays who have been setting the league on fire for the last 3 years.  THose players he drafted are then taught how to excel as a professional by the likes of minor league manager Ryne Sandberg.  Then they are slowly brought along by our intelligent front office now headed by Jim Hendry (who deserves some criticism, but has easily been our best GM since the 1940s), and his Assistant GM Greg Maddux.

Our future Manger and GM. I can smell the nostalgia from here.

So once Lou moves on this year or next, he will be replaced by Sandberg.  And when Hendry moves on, he will be replaced by “Professor” Maddux.  And those two brilliant baseball minds, with the help of our stellar head scout, the best hitting coach on Earth, and a host of other major and minor league staff, will give us a winning team made up almost entirely of our own products.  It’s already started: Soto, Castro, Theriot, Marmol, Marshall, Wells, Colvin… and they will soon be joined by Vitters, Cashner, Chris Carpenter the Sequel, and who knows who else we have stashed in there waiting to be unleashed.  That will pretty much have us set for the next decade provided we make a few (vital) moves.

Which moves are those?  Well, first there’s the problem with our aging corner infielders.  Aramis will eventually give way to Josh Vitters.  So that covers 3B for the next dozen or so years.  Lee is trickier.  He hasn’t struggled as much as Aramis, and has been pretty steady in his production over the years.  He’s also got a Gold Glove at 1st, which is hard to replace.  My opinion is that we should try to sign him for less than he earns now for a 2 year contract.  I think Lee would take it given the market for aging hitters this past off-season (Jermaine Dye anyone?  Anyone?!?  Seriously!?  No one?!?  Wow.  Sorry Jermaine.)  Aside from that, Lee’s family have made a home in Chicago and are active members of the community, and he is universally revered by the Cubs faithful and his teammates.  I think at this point he would take a discount to stay at home with his family.  As for long-term solutions at 1B, we would either have to develope someone on the quick, or sign a free-agent.  My brother tried to convince me that we should go after Adrian Gonzalez, but I wouldn’t trade anyone on our farm system with the way we’ve been pumping out future stars.  We would probably need to sign a free agent, but I would rather keep Lee for a few years than sign any of the free agents next year, o whom Adam Dunn is easily the most appealing.

Cliff Lee doesn't care for catching pop-ups. He finds it to be vulgar, and thinks it is something commoners should do for him.

As for our pitching staff, we have a lot of live young arms coming up, but we would still be lacking something: an Ace.  We haven’t had one since Wood and Prior left Wrigley in matching ambulances.  Zambrano has served as our best pitcher, but he was never a stopper, never consistently dominant enough to match up against the other contenders’ best guy.  I thin kby now we have to admit that he just doesn’t have it in him to be better than a number 2 guy.  But, there is a readily available solution: Cliff Motherfucking Lee.  That’s right.  A guy who won a Cy Young, then DOMINATED THE YANKEES SINGLE-HANDEDLY in the World Series.  He’s a free agent after this year, and he and his agent have said that re-signing in Seattle isn’t in his plans.  The Rickett’s family would really be showing their commitment to winning by signing a proven ace to lead our staff and set the tone for our team.  We need it.  He’s available.  We should get him.  No reason not to make this happen.

Other than that, all we really have to do is let our kids grow up.  I’ve already covered how good Starlin Castro is going to be.  We’ve seen the resurgence of Soto.  We’ve seen glimpses from Colvin already.  We can do this with the talent we have.  We just need to be patient with them, and surround them with the occasional acquisition and we should be title contenders within the next three to five years.  Don’t worry Cubs fans, it’s gonna happen.  And I don’t think I’m asking too much when I ask you to be patient.  We should all be used to that by now.  Only this time, it’s not just blind hope.  We finally have several reasons to be optimistic.

Developing talent like this is now the rule, not the exception. Let's keep 'em coming.

Feel good?  I thought not.  So to cheer us all up, here are a bunch of hot girls wearing cubs gear.  Enjoy!

LaRussa and Pinella, two great managers runnin' a train on baseball strategy.

So in last nights game between the Cubbies and Cards, we had an epic matching of wits between managers Lou Pinella and Tony LaRussa.  In the top of the ninth, Lou brought in lefty Sean Marshall with the bases loaded.  After Marshall got the first out, Lou came in to talk to the umpire, apparently to make a double switch since the pitcher’s spot was due up in the Cubs half of the inning.

But what he did instead was a rarely seen substitution that hearkens back to ye days of olde.  Lou put his relief pitcher, Marshall, in left field to replace Soriano, then brought in righty Aaron Heilman to face a right handed batter.  Heilman got the out.  Then Lou brought Marshall back to the mound to face a lefty batter and put Reed Johnson in left.  As brilliant as that was, LaRussa then conferred with the umpire to make sure that once Marshall took the mound, he would have to pitch to someone and can’t be subbed for.  After getting confirmation, LaRussa countered by pinch-hitting a righty batter against Marshall.  Marshall then got out of the bases loaded jam with a strike out followed by a ridiculous, though disputed, running, stumbling, and diving catch in left by the recently brought-in Reed Johnson.  I have to say, that was the best sequence of moves and counter-moves by managers that I’ve ever seen.  Even Lou was laughing when LaRussa countered with the pinch-hitter.  It was an exciting and baffling sequence that showed off just how smart these two wily veteran baseball minds are, and why they have had such long and successful careers.  It’s rare in modern baseball to see managers have such direct effect on the events of a game, and I’m glad I was witness to such an example of great baseball strategery.

As for individual performances, Derrek Lee gets first mention.  He is absolutely the hottest bat on the planet, and I couldn’t be happier.   He hit more clutch hits and homers this weekend than the rest of baseball combined.  We need our stars to carry us, and it’s obvious the Soriano is struggling o do it alone.  Lee showing that he could carry the team for a stretch should give confidence to the rest of the lineup and keep them from putting too much presure on themselves.  Randy Wells continued to prove that he’s no fluke, with another great game and his first “W.”  The young bats stepped it up too, with clutch hits by both Jake Fox and Mikah Hoffpauir.  And Geo Soto looks like he has shaken off the rust (read: extra pounds) to return to last year’s form.

The thing I took from this weekend is this: our pitching is sick , our young guys are figuring it out, and out lineup is starting to hit with runners on base.  Once we get Aramis back, we should start to pull away with the division.

1st Inning

Before I can even get setup for this running diary, Dempster gives up a solo shot to Alexei Ramirez.  Fuck!  Glad we got off to a good start.  At this point, the Cubs depend entirely on our pitching.  We can’t score more than 3 in a game right now.  If our pitching gives up a lead early, we’re pretty much done.  1-0 Sox

In the Cubs half, they go down 1-2-3.  Now you know what I was saying.  What the fuck is up with Soriano?  I know he’s streaky, but this is beyond a cold streak.  I’ve never seen his average dip this low.  And he’s not even hurt.  He’s our best player.  We really can’t afford his struggles for much longer with the rest of our lineup slumping (except for a few guys who have warmed up a bit, but I’ll get to that later.  Also, Milton Bradley sucks.  He’s just terrible.  We’re almost halfway into the season now, and I don’t have a single good thing to say about the guy.  1-0 Sox

2nd Inning

It’s interesting to hear the difference between listening to Len and Bob on WGN.  Living in New York, I kind of forget what it was like listening to a good booth team.  David Cone and Ron Darling are ok, but their booth mates are terrible (I’m looking at you Michael Kay).  And the only alternative is listening to Joe Morgan and John Miller, or Tim McCarver and Joe Buck.  I really want to have a “Terrible Booth-Off” between those two teams.  But that’s a column for another time.  While I was typing this, I just heard this sentence from Len, “There’s a broken bat triple for Chris Getz.”  There are a couple things wrong here.  First, you should never give up a broken bat triple.  Second, you should never give up a triple to Chris Getz.  Or really any kind of hit.  Brian Anderson scored on the play.  This is also something that shouldn’t happen.  Honestly, for all the big names on the White Sox, there are a lot of scrubs.  Not role players, straight scrubs.  2-0 Sox

In the Cubs half, Bob Brenly points out that Derrek Lee has a hot bat right now (told you I’d get to it).   This is a really important development since some people, including me, had completely written off his value as a batter.  We really need Lee this year until and through Aramis coming back.  Lee responds to the praise by singling past phenom Gordon Beckham.  The other hot bat is Soto, who showed up fat to spring training, and played about as well in the first two months as he had trained in the off-season.  But he’s been picking it up lately and has been hitting over three hundred for the last month and has been driving runs in lately.  Soto responds with a single that they later call an error.  The Cubs then follow that up with Reed Johnson (playing because Fukudome is in his annual mid-season tailspin) grounding into a double play, then Fontenot grounds out as well.  This is why we are hovering around .500.  You just can’t waste runners in scoring position with no outs.  2-0 Sox

3rd Inning

Len and Bob waste some time talking about the Cubs new hitting coach, Von Joshua.  I don’t think you can put any blame on the recently fired Gerrald Perry.  He had the best offense in the NL last year, now he’s the scapegoat.  But I like that Joshua has lots of experience with our young guys.  He should be able to reach them.  But Bradley and Fuku are lost.  Speaking of our youngsters, they have been the silver lining this year.  Apparently we have some kind of a system going on.  Our call-ups of the last few years include Soto, Hoffpauir, Fontenot, Theriot, Fox, Wells, Marmol, Smardzija, and Marshall.  That’s a pretty good team on its own.  Hopefully this trend will continue.  I don’t think there’s ever been a time in my life where I could honestly say that the Cubs had a healthy farm system until now.  In the meantime, the Cubs get a strikeout followed by a walk to Dye and then a double play.  Looks like Dempster is settling down.  2-0 Sox

In the start of the Cubs half, Aaron Miles grounds out.  Everyone is piling on this guy, but I think we should ease off.  It’s not his fault that people are asking him to be mediocre at best when all he’s capable of is embarrassing himself and the game.  But honestly, Bradley was a worse signing (we could have had Abreu or Ibanez for much les money).  Miles is a backup anyway.  That said, the Cubs go out not with a bang, but with a whimper.  Another 1-2-3 inning.  2-0 Sox

4th Inning

In what was looking like the start of another bad inning for the Cubs after a walk to Brian Anderson, the Cubbies snap out of it with a great strike ‘em out / throw ‘em out double play getting Getz swinging and cutting down Anderson as he attempted to steal second.  Hopefully that will energize our offense.  2-0 Sox

Theriot singles to start the bottom half.  I can’t really say anything bad about Theriot.  He has a great approach to the game, and doesn’t kill you in anyway.  He’s a pretty good defender, and has a lively bat.  It’s hard to ask for more ou of a shortstop.  Bradley follows that with a single, moving Theriot to third.  I’m refraining from saying anything bad about Bradley for now.  Lee follows that up with a pop up.  Weak.  We can’t be leaving guys on third all day.  Now we’re set up for a double play.  Soto follows that with a strikeout.  FUCK!  We can’t even make decent contact with a guy on third and no outs.  Lee could have hit either a ground ball OR sac fly, and Soto could have hit a sac fly.  We can’t even get productive outs, let alone productive hits.  Reed Johnson just grounded into a fielder’s choice.  I can’t decide if this means that eventually we will break through and drive home the guys standing on third, or if I should be resigned to the fact that we can’t even score when it’s tailor made for us.  This game sucks, but at least it’s moving along quickly.  2-0 Sox

5th Inning

Beckham leads it off with a single.  Pitcher John Danks follows that with a sac bunt to send Beckham to second.  Great, an AL pitcher is now showing the heart of our lineup how to make productive outs.  SWEET!  Pierzinski grounded out to Theriot at third.  Is there a more hated man in baseball than Pierzinski?  Even his teammates hate him.   Ugh… Soto lets one get away from him, allowing Beckham to move to third.  Our fundamentals are out of whack.  Luckily Dempster got Alexei to pop out to left.  2-0 Sox

Two strike outs and a fly out for the Cubs.  Man, it sucks when your pitcher makes better contact than the rest of your lineup, and even then it’s an out.  2-0 Sox.  This game sucks.

6th Inning

After Dye grounds out, Konerko works the count full as Soto lets another ball get by him.  What the fuck, Geo?  Aren’t you supposed to be primarily a defensive catcher?  Dempster then has a nice stab at a comeback-er, knocking the ball down and throwing it to first to beat Konerko.  Dempster follows that up with four straight balls to Pierzinski.  Did we just pitch around AJ, or is Dempster unraveling?  Either way, not good.  I guess we WERE just pitching around Pierzinski, because Dempster struck out Anderson to end the inning.  2-0 Sox

Here’s how the Cubs half of the inning goes: Soriano fly out.  Theriot fly out.  Bradley single.  Lee strikes out swinging.  Watching this game is like watching old people have sex.  Sex is good.  You like sex.  You like watching sex.  But because of the people who are doing it, it’s not only bad, it’s ruining sex for you.  Now there is a slight chance that you’ll forever associate sex with the horrors of old people doing it.  Well, this game is like that.  Baseball should be fun to watch. Instead it’s making me compare it to old people fucking.  Thanks a lot Cubs and Sox.  2-0 Sox

7th Inning

Dempster walks the first two batters, then gets pulled.  Nice outing dick.  I know he only gave up 2 [turned into 3 later], but his K/BB ratio was bad.  The score is more due to the Sox inability to hit with runners on than it is to Dempster having brought anything to the mound today.  Angel Guzman comes in relief.  John Danks again mocks us by moving a runner over with a fielders choice play.  Podsednik then shows off the wheels with a bunt single scoring Getz.  I thought the NL was the small ball league.  Guzman redeems himself with a double play.  3-0 Sox

Fly out.  Strike out.  Strike out.  Motherfuckin’ hitting coach has his work cut out for him.  3-0 Sox

8th Inning

Dye leads off with a walk.  Here’s the story of the game.  Sox have 7 walks to 4 Ks.  Cubs have ZERO walks to 9 Ks.  And that’s why the Sox are winning and why the Cubs suck my fucking ass.  Konerko singles, then Pierzinski hits a sac fly to left scoring Dye.  You know AJ only hit that sac fly to pile on with Danks on the fundamentals of situational hitting.  He didn’t even care about the run.  True story.  Getz lines out.  4-0 Sox

Aaron Miles opens up with a double.  That was probably just an act of self preservation.  I’m pretty sure if he had struck out, popped out, or grounded out weakly the fans at Wrigley would lynch him.  Nice survival instincts Aaron.  Rookie Jake Fox shows the older guys how it’s done and hits a sac fly to more Miles to third, followed by Soriano driving him home with a fielder’s indifference.  That run doesn’t do us much good now that there’s two outs in the eighth.  But maybe they can learn fundamentals from the rookie for next game.  Theriot strikes out.  4-1 Sox

9th Inning

There wasn't nearly enough of this in today's game.

Some stuff happened but nobody scored.  4-1 Sox and soon to be over.  Praise Jebus.

Bradley strikes out.  Lee grounds out.  Soto flies out.  4-1 Sox

So what did we learn here today folks?  The Cubs suck, this game sucked, and this series has sucked.  First game one gets rained out, now this flaming turd in a bag turns up on my doorstep.  And I couldn’t turn away because I had already committed to writing a running diary.  And don’t think for a second that I’m bagging this post just because the game sucked.  OH NO!  I had to watch this fucking game, so you have to read about it.  And you’re gonna like it, goddamn it!  Fine, don’t like it.  See if I care.