How much longer can Lou stand this?

I am a die-hard Sox Fan, but I also pull for CHICAGO. Cubs fans should just be patient, and so should Lou (which I expect). Whitesox went down to the Tigers the same way. It hurts, but at least you were in it to win it! Cubs have those bats, and will have plenty to root for this summer. They are already light years ahead of last year when they were out of almost every game after the fifth. Good clubs are not built over night. Lou has to tinker with the pitchers and the lineup. Be patient.

Okay, I predicted Lou would drop his first f-bomb tirade before the end of April. Now it looks like he may set a record for April. That's what the Cubs bought when they brought him in.

Sadly though, for all their spending this off season, the Cubbies forgot to purchase the one thing that sets all winners apart -- heart. By comparison, the Sox learned their lesson and got Erstad, who is a grinder, to replace the clubhouse attitude they lost when they dealt Rowand. The 2006 Sox arguably had a more talented club than the one in 2005, but they lost Rowand's clubhouse and onfield presence.

Look at last year's Cardinals team: Carpenter, Pujols, Rolen, Edmonds, Eckstein -- all tough guys who don't tolerate the prima donna attitudes of second place finishers. Now, name five Cubs who can compare to this group. Might be able to include D. Lee and maybe Zambrano, although I think it's still too easy to get him off his game. Soriano? Too early to tell. Barrett? Maybe. Marquis? Wait til he starts overthinking his pitching delivery again.

No, the Cubs are in for a long season. The upside is that they are in the NL... moreover, they are in the NL Central. They have time to make a run, but they don't have the heart to be WS Champions. And Lou's fiesty temper doesn't work on today's players like it did 17 years ago.

At least they will provide some entertainment, right?

I think it's time to start thinking about replacement GM's. Jim Hendry must know this is it for him, albeit 4 years too late. I wonder if the Cubs head honcho's still have Steve Stone on speed dial?

Cubs have some major issues, and it looks like Soriano is at the heart of it. He is a liability in the outfield period, and until he starts hitting it only looks worse. Pie is good, but can't hit a lick from what I have heard. Matt Murton appears to be headed to the bench, along with Jacque Jones. Throw that guy Floyd into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. Maybe they should think about putting Soriano at shortstop, that guy they got(forget his name at second), and let Jones, Murton, and Floyd play the outfield? Is that even reasonable?

They need to trade someone, or start Jones, Pie and Soriano in the outfield, and maybe have Floyd pinch hit or something....I don't know.

I am a White Sox fan looking in, what do the Cub Fans think should be done?

Lou certanily looked like he was 'out of it' the few times they showed him on camera in the dugout. No worries. The cubs are too talented. They will prevail. I will be watching the game tonight on milwaukee sports net. The Brewers announcers seem to be bigger fans of the Cubs than the 'all we could get' duo of Kasper and Brenly. Maybe that is where my false hope come from. I sure am glad I am stuck in Wisconsin.

Lou's learning fast what it's like in Cubbyland. They way they lost yesterday seemed so natural, and I'd venture to say that most people saw that one coming. The Cubs have too many mediocre outfielders, and still not everybody is sure Soriano should be out there at all. They are in desperate need of pitching, but so are a lot of teams. Maybe they should pony up for Roger Clemens before the Yankees do.

Someone here asked, "At least they will provide some entertainment, right?"
Wrong! Bad losing baseball is hardly a novelty on the North side of Chicago and waiting for Lou to bust a gut is a poor substitute for a real major league team.
Being inept year after year is not as nearly as cute as you seem to think it is.

....and the Chicago Cubs' dominance of last place in the National League Central continued with a scintillating 5-4 loss in 12 innings at the hands of the Milwaukee (aka 1927 Yankees) Brewers at Wrigley Field on Monday night. Even though the Cubs had runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs in the 7th inning, Cub nation was sure the Brewers would escape the inning unscathed.......and the Cubs didn't disappoint. The Cubs gave Prince Fielder, who had hit a homer earlier, the chance to double his home run output for the season when he came to bat in the 12th. Ole Prince graciously thanked them by hitting the bomb that sealed the fate of the Cubs (aka Central Division door mats) and provided Mark DeRosa with the chance, in typical Cubs fashion, to take a 3rd strike to end the game. Folks, it doesn't matter if it's Dusty Baker, Lou Pinella, Casey Stengel, or revolving coaches running the team......this club has no heart, no desire and no guts. In fact, the next time this team sees their record at .500, it will be opening day of the 2008 season. C'mon, give the ball to Wood and Prior.......at least they have an excuse for not getting anybody out.........

You have to admit the Cubs are taking losing games to a new level lately. Two things I would do immediately. Stop looking at Zambrano as your stopper. Rich Hill or Ted Lilly are the guys you want to give innings to at this point in the season. Stop putting Scott Eyre in late inning 'game' situations. This guy turned sour the last third of the '06 season (along with several others), but has shown no sign that he's coming out of it. Go with the people that are delivering. Michael Wuertz would seem a better late inning choice than Eyre at this point no matter if the hitter bats left or right. Interesting how good Neal Cotts has looked, considering the poor spring training he had. He'd also be a better choice than Eyre at this time. Even the much maligned Ohman could be given a shot over a guy with a 15.00 era. How much do you think the Cubs will offer Zambrano, with the start he's had? Maybe this is having an effect on him, not getting the long term big money contract he was hours away from.

Christine C's post sums up the Cubs ever since I can remember.They can find ways to lose only other teams dream about.What about the awful base running on Sunday?

I'm hearing the exact same things from Cub players that i heard last season. They keep saying how there's time and they've got too much talent to not right the ship. These guys need to realize that they aren't as good as they think they are, and it's going to take blood and guts for them to win ballgames. This sitting back and waiting, with the anticipation of turning it on soon will have the Cubs right where they were last year, and that's in last place. I'd just love for once to hear the players get mad about their losing, instead of this we'll get em tomorrow attitude. The Cubs have a losers mentality and until they decide that they've had enough of it, the losing will continue.

Roman responds: Good observation. I'm not sure I agree that getting mad helps, but who knows.

I am glad Christine said it was not Dusty's fault. It always partially the manager's fault, but MOSTLY the pitchers and hitters. Pitchers have to perform, hitters have to get clutch hits, and managers have to give them a chance to perform. Lou has done his job, but he has to be patient. Playing in Chicago under pressure is just compounding the situation. It makes the coach second and third guess himself. Cubs need someone with the resolve of Lovie Smith - who has the brass to calmly tell the media the WAY ITS GOING TO BE. Not all over the place reacting to their every whim. Being a firey coach is only good if you can transfer that fire to the players. Its going to get better, but Lou has to quit acting like its the end of the world. Its good for the media, but bad for his club.

Roman responds: Mentioning Dusty made me remember those comments from last summer about how the new manager better be judged as harshly as was Baker. New managers usually get a grace period, but I can just imagine how loud the calls would be for Dusty's scalp if he were still in charge.

Christine C. fantastic game summary, I'd suggest the Sun Times hire you to cover the Cubs but I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy and I have been a Cubs fan all my life. maybe it's time to replace the ivy with garlic bulbs to keep the evil spirits and the opponents vampire BATS at bay!

The last two games have bordered on the ridiculous. I don't know how much more Lou can take, but I'm more concerned with how much more "I" can take.As a fifty-year plus Cub fan,I hope Hill can continue his stopper tradition tonight. Terrific catch by Jones last night, but for the first time, I'm beginning to wonder about goat curses. Even Aflac ads are getting on the goat thing. Coudn't agree more about the Cub announcers. I watch the Brewer ones if both are televised because they're livelier, except for Nelson, and are fair to both teams.

This team is in trouble because Jim Hendry put it together. The moves I would make is put either DeRosa or Theriot at SS and give Pie another week or ten days in CF. I say this because you cannot have Pie and Isturis or Cedeno in the same lineup. That would be two position players hitting below .200 in the lineup. I think Lou is thinking about the SS move because last night Len Kasper said Theriot & DeRosa took grounders at SS.

Lou "The Great" Pinella has at least two or three years before Cub Fans start giving him the Dusty Baker treatment. So they could lose 90 games this year and Cub fans will not say a word. Why... well because there Cub fans. This year they will blame everybody but Lou...Jacque Jones or Floyd but not the manager. Last years team was a bad triple A team let alone a Major League Team and on a daily basis I heard how bad a manager Dusty Baker was but you will not hear that this year. All Lou has to do is just throw a temper tantrum and yell at some reporters and this will pacify the slow cub fans. So it doesnt matter what Lou stands for, YOU CANT WIN WITHOUT TALENT no matter who you have as a manager.

I wonder if the Cubs can still get Miquel Tejada for Mark Prior.

Typical Schlubs baseball.

No desire, no heart, no ire from the fans. You keep coming out to your beer garden in droves. Forget the goat, you are all sheep, the park is a dump, might as well have team to match, and management only spent 300 million dollars! Pathetic.

Haven't we learned by now that the Big Z is only big in the second half of the season. He is not a number 1 pitcher and never has been. He had a melt down last season opener and a let down on this year's opener. The bats will come around but Murton (maybe even Jones) are not the answers. Jones turned it around last season, but this team and last years, do not have the tools to dig themselves out of huge holes. Soriano is a number 2 or 3 hitter. Since they were able to get him to move back to left maybe they can persuade him to bat somewhere else in the lineup. Him at leadoff is not better than Pierre. I am beginning to agree with everyone who says the club has no heart. The last time I saw heart was ... when Wood took out Atlanta in the opening round of the Bartman year. We need to trade for another outfield bat (using Jones or Murton), probably in right field, put Floyd on the bench, get rid of Jones or Murton, get Pie going, and then bring in your 12th pitcher.

Maybe we should rephrase the saying from wait till next year to, wait till we have another great 5 starter rotation.

It's all Dusty Bakers fault. I listened to all the crap out of the listeners to talk radio who were egged on by your Boors and Bernsteins and all I can say is, it's all Dusty bakers fault. Sometime soon it will become Lou Pinella's fault but since he was sainted while Dusty was villified, it will be awhile before the talking heads and their frothing listeners can see reality. THE CUBS SUCK!!!!

Pinella will never win as Cub manager because when he came to Chicago, he unloaded all the "Baker" coaches except for the worst one, Rothschild, who can't manage and has no clue how to handle and coach a pitching staff. In the last couple of years, the Cubs could have signed any number of free agent pitchers, but what do they do? They sign Lilly, who's coming off of a serious injury and Miller, whose best days are behind him. And Rothschild and Baker are both to blame for Wood and Prior being in their present conditions. They kept running them out there and leaving them in games all day long knowing how hard-throwing they both are and the possible negative effect it could have on their pitching arms. And the really hilarious thing is, Cubs management fires the trainer because they figured he must be responsible for the deplorable condition of the players. So typical. And as long as Hendry continues to run the asylum, the madness will just go merrily on.

Lou said the players could write their own ticket ....... "I'll play the guy who's playing the best."
Then what the heck is the very hot-hitting Ryan Theriot doing on the bench? And Cliff Floyd?? --
PLEASE!!! Murton lead the team in batting average last year ....... why is he being platooned with
a guy who is more than inept in the outfield and "not being able to hit" thrown in for good measure.
What is it exactly that Cliff Floyd does do well? What a joke. Lou is worse than Dusty Baker. I have loved the Cubs forf 51 years but I'm getting pretty tired of this season.

Roman responds: Ok, that's officially the first Lou's-worse-than-Dusty comment. Mark it down. How many more to come?
And Theriot's always been under-used.

Well, still another uninspiring loss for the Chicago (aka Devil Rays north) Cubs tonight. 11 base runners, 10 scoring opportunities, 1 run scored and 2 hours, 58 minutes that had the same level of excitement as cleaning the cats litter box (both of the aforementioned outcomes, by the way, were similar). Offensively, well, the bats have been kinda limp so far this season. Loading them with cork is a possible solution, but injecting them with Viagra might be much more effective. Great city, spectacular ballpark and loyal, dedicated fans and all 3 are far above the inferior performance this franchise force feeds them year after year, after decade, after century.......the Rip Van Cubs continue on with their 100 year slumber....

Roman resonds: Now please apologize to the Devil Rays.

Cubs certainly are the same old cubs . Pitching hasn't been all the bad exception Eyre gas can work out of pen ,Zambrano's slow start &the #5 starter hardly locked up. Lack of clutch hitting certainly is killing cubs.The failure to execute simple fundamentals both on offense & in the field. Sounds like a broken record doesn't it? Not to mention Wood & Prior's annual DL stints ,these two continue to steal from cubs payroll . I'm a Chicago area transplant that now lives over 2000 miles away. I like to see both Chi teams do well. On over all report card this early Sox certainly have a passing grade so far! Hopefully the offense will get going on south side though?The Cubs certainly failed miserably. It's early but Hendry's 300 million dollar project doesn't look good for cubs or for his long term future as GM.

Get real cub fans.You could lose the next 10 games and still lead the division by August.
I do find it funny that the Yankees and cubs with over 300 mill in talent are both in last place.

Lou will be able to tolerate things to a point, he went through losing with the Devil Ray, but the Cub take it to a whole new level. Something about putting on the pinstripes (and the grays on the road- nice move by McDonough by the way) turns superstars into normal players, like kryptonite did to Superman. The outfield situation you can blame on Hendry. Jim, what did you think was going to happen when you signed Jones to a 3 year deal last year and then followed that up by signing Floyd this year? Two defensively challenged outfielders that strike out too much- sounds like the same old Cubs to me. Someone (Jones) needs to be moved and quickly. Even though we don't know if Pie is the answer, he is easily the best centerfielder we have right now. He still as many home runs as Jones does, none. Soriano will go from a 40-40 guy to a 20-20 guy now that he is a Cub. Lou also has decided that Ronny Cedeno deserves to play a lot of shortstop early on, I don't understand that at all, he is a backup at best and Izturis should be playing more unless he is hurt. Theriot should be playing everyday in the infield, maybe you put him at short at some point if DeRosa is playing second. The defense may suffer a bit, but at least maybe offensively we can get a little consistency.

The starting pitching has been pretty good so far, but the bullpen is already being overworked and isn't getting the job done. Consistently coming into games and getting behind in the count is not the road to success (Scott Eyre). Larry Rothchild needs to get off of his ass and work with some of these guys to see what the heck is causing the pitchers to consistently throw more balls than strikes. There is nothing worse that watching consistent counts of 2-0, 2-1, 3-0, 3-1. Major League hitters are going to make you pay. Why Rothchild is even back is beyond me, I know Lou likes him and has had him coach with him before. Maybe it is a mental thing, who knows? Trust your defense to get the job done and throw strikes! The fact that they have a guy named Rocky Cherry in games already should tell you something. The Cub magic worked with him already as he gave up the game winning HR to Prince Fielder the other night. Wade Miller will soon be joining the other two guys (no need to mention their names as they are dead to me) in the thanks for playing, time to go category. Guzman, Marmol, Marshall, one of those guys should be the 5th starter the rest of the season. Miller has no movement on his fastball and he is pushing to get it up to 88-89 miles an hour right now and the hitters are making him look bad. Maybe he gets himself right, but how long does Lou wait before pulling the plug. I know we are only 20 games into the season, but there have not been a lot of bright spots yet. Losing at home so much isn't very good either, Wrigley is the Unfriendly confines for Cub fans these days. Its time for these overpaid underachievers to get their act together. This is a winnable division, but the Cubs are burying themselves again with a lackluster April. Go Cubs go may be replaced by Blow Cubs Blow, lets get back to .500 and start winning some games already!

Many who now want Hendry fired praised him for getting Ramirez, Lee, Barrett, Garciaparra etc.. You know, guys with "heart." But the signing of DeRosa was puzzling given Theriot's play last year. The team doesn't lack heart. So far - 1) they lack middle-relief pitching & 2) home run production (Lee, Soriano etc.). Like it or not they were designed as a big hit offense, the skid will go on until it kicks-in.

Reference to one bloggers comment about Devil Rays north = cubs.Be nice if cubs had played as well as D Rays so far this season. At least Rays aren't in last place (as I write anyhow). But understand the reference blogger made. D Rays just might out win Cubs in 07.

I refuse to throw in the towel just yet. The Cubs have hit pretty well, just not when they need it most. The starting pitching has also been at least good. The bullpen has been pretty bad but hopefully will get better when the weather waems up along with the Cubs' power hitters. Soriano and Lee both would have had homers last night except for the wind but settled for doubles and ended up stranded, all too familiar a story this year. Three double plays and runners in scoring position with no outs unable to score seems more a problem with the hitting coach than the pitching one. Have these guys ever considered sacrifice flyballs or opposite field dunks?

Rain, rain
Please stay.
I can't stand this
For one more day.

All I can say is thanks for the SOX and BULLS! Work hard, have heart, and look at this, they WIN!

Christine C. , It is rather disturbing that you presume the Cubs Players do not care. Of course, I do not have a 'losers mentality'as you claim they do,and I am not familar with the symptoms of a 'loser mentality'. Good thing there are people like you who seem to be really familar with the symptoms to point them out to us winners. To think all this time I thought I was being a real Cub fan because I am proud to be a fan-win or lose. I also think it is out of place to think viagra would have an effect on a baseball bat. That is just silly. In case you're wondering, most of the replies here are from Sox fans and are invalid. They just come to Cubs threads because there is never anything going on in Sox threads(nobody cares). So I am afraid your observations have only been agreeable to the 'blind'. Don't worry though, there is always 'next year'.

I agree with you Roman the follies this April are shaping up to be legendary. Every spring I have hopes just like everyone else but this year I had high hopes. I don't mean calikind high hopes like, "this might be this year" I mean off-season moves are looking like The Cubs are going to have a good team kind of high hopes. Its way to early in the season to get worried but high hopes brings high expectations and they are not being met right now. I know, so what it’s early, but...

Lou needs to explode.

When I hear stories about Lou telling the players things like its OK your dog still loves you I wonder what is going on there. After some of the recent losses I want to hear that Lou stormed into the clubhouse kicking over every trash can on his way and firing the lids at the biggest group of useless pitchers standing around filing their nails. I want to read that he threw a chair through the chalkboard saying, “I guess we have to come up with a new game plan boys, maybe tomorrow if we score twenty runs we can win. Or better yet, maybe we could send the bat boy out to the mound to hold the lead he might do the job he tossed a good one to the Ump in the sixth tonight.” I suppose stories like that might make me feel better for a minute but I trust that Lou is doing the right things at the right times. I just hope that he is going to get some pitching. I love the aggressive offence that generates runs its very exciting but it will always break my heart if the L flag is raised after an exciting game.

On the other hand…Great win yesterday Cubbies!

GO CUBS!

It is beyond the realm of possibility to be a Cubs fan for any length of time and not harbor resentment regarding the way that franchise has been handled over the years. Both leagues are littered with former Cub players that have become stars or are on the brink of stardom. When the 2007 baseball season began, there wasn't a starter among the 8 the Cubs ran out there that was developed in their own organization. 2008 will mark the dubious 100 year "anniversary" of the last World Series the Cubs won. All of the most recent expansion teams, save for the Devil Rays, have won at least one World Series since they came into their respective leagues. Now, quite frankly, I'm not sure if you are a winner or not, but I know the Cubs haven't been and that is fact and not speculation or opinion. It is exactly what it is my winner friend and I do believe there is a lack of pride and tradition with the Cubs franchise because since the modern baseball era began, the Chicago Cubs haven't come close to giving their fans back what has been given to them in vain for all these years........P.S. The inference to injecting their bats with Viagra was made in an effort to sprinkle a little humor on to what is shaping up to be another dreary baseball season on Chicago's north side and having a good sense of humor goes a long way towards helping the true Cubs fan retain his or her sanity......

A SOX fans opinion is not valid? Seems that no opinion is valid with a team like the scrubs. Mindless sheep going to your beer garden. Does anyone notice that there is a game going on? Oh, and by the way, that you are normally LOSING at these games?