Bleacher Bums Forum

Even though they're winning, the Cubs have played a really poor fundamental game today.  Castro made an error early in the game that allowed Alvarez to reach.  On the same play, Lake kicked the ball in left center and then played it lazily and missed the cutoff man, letting Alvarez get all the way to third on what should've been an easy line out to the shortstop.

Darnell McDonald was TOOTBLAN'd at third base with nobody out in the fourth inning.

And now Castro made another error just lazily playing a grounder in the 9th.

If Sveum's job depends on the focus of this team today, the Cubs are going to have a new manager next year.

Even though they're winning, the Cubs have played a really poor fundamental game today.  Castro made an error early in the game that allowed Alvarez to reach.  On the same play, Lake kicked the ball in left center and then played it lazily and missed the cutoff man, letting Alvarez get all the way to third on what should've been an easy line out to the shortstop.

Darnell McDonald was TOOTBLAN'd at third base with nobody out in the fourth inning.

And now Castro made another error just lazily playing a grounder in the 9th.

If Sveum's job depends on the focus of this team today, the Cubs are going to have a new manager next year.

I did not see the entire game, but I did see Lake's very poor play, in which he airmailed a throw all the way to Rizzo at 1B, when a good throw would have gotten the runner going to 2B.  And I saw Castro's second error, which was frustrating it two ways. First, he had enough time to get in front of the grounder to his right but chose to backhand the ball, muffing it in the process. Second, his athleticism almost enabled him to recover and make the play anyway.  He has so much natural ability, but makes poor choices too often. 

That said, Sveum certainly cannot be blamed for Lake's poor defense in LF, and I'm not so sure he can be blamed for Castro's weaknesses either.

Castro had committed something like 3 errors in 50 games before having issues the last week.

I'm not so sure he can either, but for whatever reason, Sveum really hasn't managed to connect with Castro and hasn't figured out how to press the right buttons to get the most out of him.

I don't know..... I didn't see the game, but the way you folks have described it, it sounds as if a Bobby Cox might have yanked both of Lake and Castro mid-inning for those kinds of mistakes.

I am not at all bothered by the Cubs losing games this season.

I am bothered a lot by the kind of play being described here, regardless where the team is in the standings, or whether the team benefits more from a loss than from a win, or how late it is in the season.  And it should be more bothering that it comes from young players like Castro and Lake.

Travis Wood is supposedly going to pitch one inning tonight to get to 200 IP, then they're going to shut him down.  That seems kind of pointless and arbitrary...if you're really worried about him doing damage by pitching more, then you just call it a year at 199 innings.  If it's just precautionary, then what's the difference between 200 IP and 205 IP?

I guess that's true. 

Still, if you're going to let him start and throw one inning, you might as well let him start and throw 5-6 innings.  I'm sure if it was up to Wood, he'd make a regular start tonight.

So 3 of the 5 NL playoff teams clinched against the Cubs this week? 

Braves and Cards clinch the division, and the Pirates clinch one of the wild cards.