The Cubs lost to the Padres 9-2 Wednesday night, ending their season at 71-91.
Truth be told, I didn't watch much of that game after Will Venable's grand slam (and you probably don't want or need to hear much more than that), because four other baseball games were far more compelling.
I have seen a lot of baseball; much of it bad, some of it good, a little of it great. Wednesday night was the most incredible night of baseball I have ever seen -- and I don't think any other single day is even close. Seriously. It's one of those scenarios where you say, "If you submitted this as a Hollywood script, they'd laugh you out of their office." And even that doesn't come close to the improbability of so many of the events of Wednesday night:
I could go on and on and on; there's far, far more that happened last night than I can possibly put in a single post. There were multiple heroes for the winners Wednesday night and enough excitement for us to talk about for years to come. I've had people ask me, both here and elsewhere, what I do when there's no baseball. You all know the old Rogers Hornsby quote:
People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
It's not quite that simple, of course. Sure, there are other sports to watch while I wait for spring training to begin with the promise of better times ahead. But to me, absolutely nothing is as compelling as the drama that baseball can give. Wednesday night, the sport was in its glory. The Cubs stuck around the visiting clubhouse in San Diego to watch. It nearly brought down SB Nation servers, as you might have noticed at times Wednesday night; it kept me up far later than I thought I'd stay up, watching the aftermath of the Rays' incredible win. Listening to Evan Longoria describe how he was feeling after he hit the walkoff homer, you could hear the disbelief in his voice. Even the man who did it couldn't quite process what had happened.
I love this game. Wednesday night was a reminder of why. The game in Tampa didn't win the pennant or World Series, but I couldn't help thinking as I watched the Rays' celebration: "Someday, I want that to be us."
Petco Park in San Diego has a reputation as being a difficult stadium to hit home runs in; this year's park factor list shows it as being 23rd among the 30 MLB parks in HR park factor (Wrigley Field is right in the middle at 15th).
Nevertheless, it was home runs that won Tuesday night's game for the Cubs, 6-2 over the Padres. Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano both hit their 26th home runs of the season. For Aramis, it could be his last in a Cubs uniform, unless he hits one or more this evening. Personally, I hope the new general manager quickly locks A-Ram up to a new contract. The Cubs can't do better than that at third base for the next two or three years, and he has been the best offensive performer at third base in the NL this season.
As for Soriano's blast, I thought Gordon Wittenmyer (who tweeted way too many of Mike Quade's nicknames last night) was funny:
There's often truth in humor. Maybe there's a team that would pay 20% of Soriano's deal for him to DH for the next three years (hellooooo, Yankees?). Some props for prescience to Len & Bob, who had just finished mentioning that Soriano was 5-for-11 lifetime with two doubles and a homer vs. Padres reliever Chad Qualls when Sori hit his blast over the wall in deep center field.
When Mike Quade put his "kids lineup" on the field on September 19, 2010, they defeated the Florida Marlins 13-3.
That day, they were facing the Marlins' Andrew Miller, who posted an 8.54 ERA in 2010 and has a career ERA of 5.79 (and 5.54 in 12 starts for the Red Sox this year, which could go a long way toward explaining Boston's troubles).
That wasn't the case Monday night in San Diego. The Padres' Mat Latos is a very good pitcher; his 8-14 W-L record coming into the game reflects the 3.3 runs/start of run support he had received this season before Monday. That ranked 64th among 70 qualified starters in the National League.
That number actually went down Monday night; he got just two runs from his teammates, but Latos was outstanding and he and two relievers shut out the Cubs 2-0 on just two hits. The loss was the Cubs' 90th of the season; I've taken down the "loss countdown" box that was on the left sidebar. Now, I'd just like to see them win their last two games to finish up on a high note.
So what would you have done?
Randy Wells had thrown 96 pitches (62 strikes) through seven innings, but had just allowed a solo homer to Yadier Molina, tying the score 2-2. The Cubs didn't score in the eighth, and Wells was due up third in the ninth.
Leave him in, or take him out?
Mike Quade chose to leave him in. Wrong call, Mike. Rafael Furcal hit Wells' second pitch over the right field wall for another homer. The Cubs went down meekly in the ninth inning and the Cardinals had a 3-2 win over the Cubs, their second straight come-from-behind one-run win.
Instead of helping eliminate the Cardinals from the wild-card race, the Cubs put St. Louis right back in it by basically giving them two of the three games. The Nationals shut out the Braves 3-0 Sunday afternoon. So, with three games left in the regular season, the Braves lead the Cardinals by just one game in the NL wild-card chase. Worse for the Braves, they have to host a Phillies team that has to be upset at the eight-game losing streak they just broke today against the Mets, while the Cardinals visit Houston to play an Astros club that lost its 104th game of the year to the Rockies -- 19-3.
If you believe in baseball momentum, it would appear the Cardinals have it.
One of two things has to happen with Carlos Marmol once the Cubs hire a new general manager (and, presumably, a new manager).
Either get a pitching coach here who can work with him and try to solve his control issues, or trade him.
Marmol had another stunning ninth-inning meltdown, throwing only 13 strikes in 30 pitches and walking in the tying run, then wild-pitching in the winning run as the Cardinals stayed in the wild card race with a 2-1 win over the Cubs.
For Marmol, it was his 10th blown save of the season, which now leads the National League by three -- that's right, no one else has more than seven. If you think that doesn't matter, consider that Jose Valverde of the Tigers has 47 saves without a blown save this year. Convert those 10 blown saves -- some of them in spectacular fashion -- and you've got a team that's 80-78 instead of 70-88. Sure, that's probably a simplistic reaction to this, and the Cubs have actually won two of the 10 games in which Marmol has blown a save, but there's clearly something wrong with Marmol that no one on the current team has been able to fix. His walks are actually down this year -- 5.4 per nine innings, compared to 6.0 in 2010 -- but he's given up more hits, and struck out fewer batters, which gives him much less margin for error.
I like good, down-to-the-last-day pennant races; earlier this month it didn't look like we'd have any, but some good runs by teams like the Giants and Rays helped baseball go into the final week of the season with the wild cards still in doubt.
At the same time, I'm always happy to see the Cardinals eliminated from postseason play, and it's even better when the Cubs do it. Friday night brought the bizarre sight of a full house at Miller Park in Milwaukee cheering loudly for the Cubs when the Cubs weren't even playing there.
The Brewers defeated the Marlins in Milwaukee in a game that ended about 9:40 p.m., clinching a tie for the division title for the Brewers. At the time, the Cubs and Cardinals were still locked in a 1-1 tie, but very shortly thereafter, Alfonso Soriano smacked a three-run homer off Kyle McClellan. If the roof hadn't been closed at Miller Park you might have been able to hear the cheering all the way to St. Louis.
The Cubs added a run in the ninth inning and defeated the Cardinals 5-1; that made the Brewers NL Central champions, only the second division title in their history and first as an NL team. I'm not fond of the Brewers and their antics, but congratulations to them. They earned it; now they'll await their first-round playoff opponent. They currently lead the Diamondbacks by one game in the overall standings; if it finishes that way and the Braves win the wild card, Milwaukee will play Atlanta. If Arizona passes them, the Brewers play the Phillies; if, somehow, the Cardinals or Giants pass up the Braves (even more unlikely after both of them lost Friday night), the Brewers and Diamondbacks would meet up.
As I noted in this morning's preview, three long-time Cubs -- Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano and Kerry Wood -- are the only ones left from the 2003 NL Central champions. None of them appeared today, and in fact, none may appear for the rest of the season.
Instead, we got a taste of what may be to come for the 2012 Cubs. Matt Garza, who has been every bit the pitcher any of us could have hoped for when he came over from the Tampa Bay Rays, threw his second complete game of the season Wednesday afternoon in the Wrigley Field finale for 2011. A little bit better defense would have gotten him a shutout; the only run in the Cubs' 7-1 win over the Brewers was unearned after a Starlin Castro error. I'll forgive that one, because Castro had two hits (even though he was thrown out in the first inning after ill-advisedly trying to stretch a double into a triple). Castro had one shot at his 200th hit, with a runner on second base in the eighth inning, but he walked. I was surprised Castro took a 3-0 pitch right down the middle with a six-run lead; why not try it there, since everyone wanted to see the 200th hit at that point?
Also, a big razzberry to Brewers manager Ron Roenicke, who intentionally walked Castro with two out and a runner on second base in the fifth inning of a tie game. Really, Ron? Really? DJ LeMahieu made Roenicke pay with a booming two-run double to the deepest part of the park; it missed by maybe 10 feet of being LeMahieu's first MLB homer.
A surprisingly large crowd -- announced as 36,571, there were probably 30,000 in the house -- showed up to watch baseball at Wrigley Field on Tuesday night.
Too bad the Cubs didn't show up.
I suppose that really isn't 100% fair; credit where credit is due to the Brewers' Shaun Marcum, who almost completely baffled Cubs hitters for eight innings in Milwaukee's 5-1 win over the Cubs. Darwin Barney solved him for a couple of doubles; Randy Wells singled up the middle; Reed Johnson had a pinch-hit single (and promptly got thrown out trying to stretch it to a double by Ryan Braun, who made an excellent throw).
And Starlin Castro hit his 10th home run of the season for the Cubs' only run of the game. In doing so he reached base for the 33rd consecutive game. Only one shortstop in Cubs history -- Woody English, in 1929 -- had a longer such streak, and Castro could tie that by reaching base today.
Here is the list of shortstops who had 10 or more home runs in a season, at age 21 or younger: Travis Jackson, 11 HR at age 20, in 1924; Vern Stephens, 14 at age 21, in 1942; Cal Ripken, 28 at age 21, in 1982; Wil Cordero, 10 at age 21, in 1993, and Alex Rodriguez, who did it twice (36 at age 20 in 1995 and 23 at age 21 in 1996).
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