Little Things Kill
There's very little to complain about in Cubland these days, so this will definitely sound a bit cavil. (Especially if you're a Pirates fan - man, they're godawful.) But I was watching the Cubs game today, and I was getting annoyed by the little things. I mean, this is the best Cubs team I've ever seen, and I really am enjoying the heck out of this season. I just can't stand watching when the Cubs screw up the easy plays and/or not hustle.
Case in point: Alfonso Soriano. I love watching him when he's hot, and when you come down to it he's the lone super-duper-star on the team. But yesterday, he took his eye off the ball for a split-second, mid-hop I might add, and dropped the most routine of flyball outs. This ultimately caused the Cubs to cough up the lead (temporarily). I honestly think that even I would have had a 50% chance of making that play. But for a major leaguer to drop it? Without sun in his eyes? Almost unheard of. You might see one drop that bad in an entire season of watching baseball, and even would probably be because the guy was playing out of position.
Then today, he had two more brain freezes. In the first, he hit a double off the wall...which is great. But had he even remotely hustled, it would have been a leadoff triple. I wouldn't say that he was jogging, but he was definitely giving less than 75% effort on his way to first. So frustrating. A half inning later, Jack Wilson hit a weak liner to left, except he was running hard to first. Soriano jogged over and bobbled the ball for a second, and that was all Wilson needed to make it to second. (Aramis, of all people, benefited from a similar hustle play last week.)
And Soriano's not the only one. I've found that Ryan Theriot routinely doesn't have his head in the game either. Case in point, he got thrown out at third today (on a grounder) for like the 5th time this year. That's Jacque Jones bad, and he hasn't gotten 1/100th of the crap that the much-maligned Jacque got. I should know, I maligned Jacque very much. Plus The Riot's been caught stealing almost as many times as he's been successful. Rule is, if you're not successful at least 75% of the time stealing, you're actually hurting the team more than helping. Don't steal, especially third, when you aren't positive you'll make it.
And I don't even want to get in to Zambrano's recent struggles. Once a head case, always a head case. I don't want to overreact on this, because he's always been prone to mid-season mini-slumps. Ultimately, I think he'll be fine by the time September rolls around. But how long will it be before he breaks a bone punching dry wall or busting a bat over his leg? Talk about an avoidable injury.
All in all, I'd much rather have one Soriano giving 80% than a hundred Jack Wilsons giving 110%. I'm not stupid. I'm just saying it can be incredibly annoying to watch. If one of those little plays causes a postseason series to be lost, the player in question will go down in infamy with Leon Durham, Bill Buckner, Alex Gonzalez, Fred Merkle, and the rest. Hustling and playing smart would avoid half those problems.
Of course, the Cubs ended up doing the little things right in the 7th with the squeeze play and some smart baserunning. And, of course, they ended up sweeping the Pirates for about the ninth time this year. And they're the best team in baseball, thirty-three games over .500 for the first time since 1945. So I really have no right to complain in the slightest. I'm just saying....