| « Cubs' Losing Streak Hits 7 | Game 5 postmortem » |
Cubs Tue May 26 2009
Um...Make That 8
And the beat(ing) goes on... With their 10-8 loss to the Pirates yesterday, the Cubs losing streak hit eight, matching their longest losing streak in the last SEVEN seasons. "It certainly can't get any worse," said catcher Geovany Soto, who apparently never heard of the numbers nine, ten or eleven, etc. Although their hitting has been taking a downward slide lately (they're batting .244 as a team, third worst in the majors), the bats woke up yesterday and pounded out 10 hits. But pitching is still a hit-or-miss proposition (no pun intended). Yesterday, starter Ryan Dempster lasted only four innings and gave up six runs, two on back-to-back bases-loaded walks. The bullpen, of course, wasn't much better with Neal Cotts dishing up a two-run homer to let Pittsburgh take the lead.
So what's the solution? Well, a lot of people, including Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan, thinks the team needs an eruption from Mount St. Lou (Pinella) to fire up the troops. At least Milton Bradley and Ted Lilly seem to think raised voices are the answer as both have had verbal run-ins with the umps lately, with Lilly being tossed from the bench during Monday's game. But if you need a dirt-kicking tantrum from Pinella to beat someone like today's Pirate starter Ian Snell (1-5, 4.88 ERA), then they've got bigger problems than anyone ever thought.
