How is that for cutting-edge analysis? I can’t explain the 2009 Cubs. Quite honestly, I grow weary contemplating the problems.
Apparently every player who had banner 2007 and 2008 seasons regressed not only to some sort of mean, but a sinkhole. Apparently all those comeback wins the Cubs had during their two division title seasons are being repaid, painfully, day in and day out. And apparently the response to being dominated by Derek Lowe in last season’s playoffs should have been to, er, sign Derek Lowe.
It’s a rough time to be a fan. The Cubs look listless. They look like they don’t care. Whether or not they are, I can’t say. Probably not. But they now reap what their meager offense has sown – gut-reaction vitriol spewed from the core of fan, media, blogger, and city angst.
The media and ornery fan base have been enduring for a long time, seemingly ready to pounce since October: Waive Zambrano, wake up Lou, fire Hendry, deport Bradley, etc., etc. None of them is right, and all of them are correct, but they aren’t, really, and the whole thing is exhausting.
Sure, it’s easy now to look at the off-season and pillory Jim Hendry. He tweaked a solid contender that somehow fell apart against L.A. But we’d been pining for Bradley for years – his signing was an accurate response to Fukudome’s 2008 failures. As for trading DeRosa, sure, it wasn’t popular, but it was supposed to net Jake Peavy. Looking at Fontenot’s splits, the rationale even seemed somewhat justified. And it was – if the core of the lineup produced. Or if DeRosa’s intangibles really weren’t important.
As for Heilman and Miles and Marquis and Vizcaino; who knows? They all suck, in various forms here and there. But those are spare parts, anyway. Gaudin just pitched a 1-hitter last night – should they have kept him? But the starting rotation is the best in the majors – with any semblance of clutch hitting or on-base percentage, the Cubs would be just fine. How can we blame Hendry, or Lou, or Larry Rothschild, or even Gerald Perry for that? More importantly, it’s all in the recent past. And how long (and how vehemently) do we wait for the light to turn on? The luck to even out?
Baseball is a funny game. Funny kind of like the most squirm-inducing episodes of The Wonder Years or The Office. Funny like plummeting into an open sewer. This season, for whatever reason, injuries and repeated failure and blow-ups and mistakes have coalesced for the Cubs – and it just might be that they never get on track.
This is life for Cubs fans; for all baseball fans. During 2007 and 2008 we spent all season wondering when the bottom would drop out, despite nary a sign that it would. (It did; but the playoffs are crapshoots, always.) During 2009, we stupidly yearn for the bell to ding, and a team to flip the switch, absolutely certain at some point they’ll break out of their concurrent slumps – despite no sign it will happen. Not one.
Which is more dumb? And honestly, should we even care?
“But we’d been pining for Bradley for years”…
I think you used the wrong pronoun. “I” is the word you were looking for.
Granted. The jury’s still out on whether I hoped for his offensive production, or just the repeated ability to make gameboard jokes. Sorry! (snickers…)