Cubs 5- Dodgers 3

Yippee skippee! The Cubs move above .500 with their first 4 game winning streak of the season.

Play of the Game: Michael Barrett's 2 run homer in the 4th made the score 4-0. It was also important because Patterson was on 2nd with nobody out for the second inning in a row. This time he was able to score.

Lowlight of the Game: Wellemeyer walking the first two batters in the 8th. I thought it was time to pull him, but Dempster was the only right hander up with Ohman up to face Drew. Dusty stuck with him and he was able to get Werth to ground into a key double play. That killed the rally.

Injury Updates: From cubs.com. Kerry Wood through a succesful 30 pitch mound session before the game. ESPN showed a couple of pitches which looked pretty good. Baker is still saying All-Star break is a good goal for Wood. I would like to see mid-June if he's pain free.

Prior is without the sling, which is pretty good. The swelling has gone down and the range of motion has increased. I'm really worried about this injury, simply because it's his freaking pitching elbow. But I hope that when the range comes back, the pitching can happen pain free. I hope he is doing his exercises and keeping his shoulder/wrist and elbow musculature strong. In the meantime, John Koronka will start on Wednesday. 3-5 with a 5.05 ERA at AAA Iowa in 9 starts this season. Not good, but Mitre was not great either and he had an excellent first start.

Cubs 3- Pirates 2

Backwards series. It makes me think, what the hell happened the past two days? Two back to back 9th inning comebacks? Today in the 9th, Burnitz walks to lead off the inning. He promptly gets thrown out trying to steal second; I refuse to beleive that "hit and run" line. Then Barrett hits a high pop up that somehow carries all the way to the wall for a double. Somehow, Valparaiso U alum Lloyd McClendon thinks it's a good idea to walk Corey Patterson, who was still looking to swing at the pitches, even though the catcher was signaling for an intentional walk. Dusty makes the right decision and brings in Hollandsworth who swings at two really bad pitches and manages to get it to a full count. He hits a liner off of the first basemen and into right field plating a run and tieing the game. The nuttiness doesn't end there. Jose Macias is up next and hits a sacrifice fly to the outfield to put the Cubs in the lead.

The bottom of the ninth is even more crazy. The first batter up is Tike Redman who doubles down the right field line. I immediately think that this game is going to be tied. Rob Mackowiak is up next and walks on 4 pitches which was actually a blessing in disguise. Lloyd pulls Bobby Hill and brings in Freddie Sanchez to bunt. It was obvious that was what he was doing, since he had Bobby Hill in the on-deck circle to pinch hit and then brought him down. Sanchez, the bunting specialist, bunts right back to the pitcher Dempster who throws to 3rd to get the lead runner. Macias tries to be the hero and tries to the throw the ball into the seats down the right field line but Hairston leaps and gets the ball. He jumped so high, I thought Lee had saved that ball. Next guy up is Lawton who dribbles a ball to second. The runner comes in between Hairston and the ball and Hairston bobbles it. Hairston complains of interference, but it was obvious from replays that he booted it. The next guy is Jack Wilson who grounds into a double play to end the game. If he beats out the throw to first, the game is tied.

The Cubs tried to give the game away 3 times in the 9th (Macias, Hairston, and Dempster's walk) and still won. How many times has that happened this year? None. Next up is that other team in Chicago, a team who I don't hate but who really hates me.

See Post Below

Once again, Derrek Lee shows why he's my favorite player, single handidly willing the Cubs offense to a 4-3 victory tonight. It's too bad that Prior did not get the win and Will Ohman did. Ohman faced one batter and got a great double play but in no way did the same pitching job that Prior did. I have no real qualms about any of the managing tonight. Hairston showed why he was leading off in the 9th. I probably would have yanked Prior after the two solo shots in the 6th. He was up already around 92 pitches and is coming back on regular rest on Sunday, but he was terrfic in the 7th, so I would have looked bad.

Too much has already been said about the recent signing of Enrique Wilson and in short I have no idea why it was made either. So go check out the other blogs; they include statistics that make everyone scratch their head.

The Zambrano injury is kind of quirky to me. This was the quote from Baker: "Baker said after a doctor explained to him the spot where Zambrano is feeling soreness, he asked bench coach Dick Pole if he'd ever seen that in that part of the arm. Baker explained that Pole said, "No, never." I don't know if Dusty is using that as a way to justify that Zambrano's injury isn't from pitching, but if it is, it's bizarre. From my humble (student physical therapy) perspective, lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) comes from overuse. 136 pitches is overuse. That didn't cause the injury, but it didn't help things either. Then these quotes: "The doctor said that that's what you see in a non-throwing injury situation," Baker said. "Whatever it was that caused it, we're trying to get to the bottom of it so it doesn't return. It definitely had something to do with the cramps that he would get and different things. We're talking to him to find out some of the things he may be doing off the field that might be causing this discomfort on the field.
"We're exploring. One of the theories the doctor has is on his swing -- that's what they get on swinging. That's possibly one of them, but we're looking into some other areas to find out what he's doing to pop up as a non-throwing injury." This is all way too vague in my opinion.

In my opinion from just reading is that this injury is from pitching.

Lots of Updates

Marquette
Well if you didn't hear the news, here it is. I think this was one of the best moves that the Board of Trustees could have done. It was obvious from all of the polls that this was a mistake and the board figured that out. They actually admitted they made a mistake and are trying to change that now. I don't really have any ideas, unless we go back to Avalanche, Hilltoppers or Warriors. They say that Warriors will not come back and in fact your vote will be thrown out if you write in Warriors. As somebody posted on Ahoya, maybe it's time to put pressure on the Native American tribes and explain our position and how we feel Warriors without the mascot is not offensive. Besides the Board of Trustees, the Great Lakes Tribal Council has come out of the most negative publicity. Unfair or not, they have come across as stubborn and narrow minded. Nothing bad can come out of some positive PR for all of the Native American tribes if they gave their go ahead for Warriors. I'm pondering if I write in Warrios whether that will be counted or not. Like the bad guy in Super Mario Bros..

Cubs
If you didn't know already, I have a huge man-crush on one Derrek Lee. And I have ever since he came to the Cubs before the 2004 season. Lee is my favorite Cubs player, which is saying a lot since I usually yell at the whole team when they screw up during games. Lee was one of my favorite players during the nightmare that was last season. He really played hard and never asked for a day off at the end of the season, even though he was so worn down. He has basically carried the Cubs offense in Nomar's absence and Aramis's semi-slump this season. Yesterday was a pure example of what he means to the Cubs. Dempster (the new closer,ahhhhhhh) blew his first save in the role. Lee came up in the bottom of the 10th and went down 0-2. He worked it to 3-2 and kept fouling off pitches, until he got one he liked and blasted it out. It was more significant because it was straight into a 25 MPH gusting wind. Lee didn't care how hard the wind was blowing, he wanted that game.
I plan on doing a Michael Wuertz for closer study coming up sometime. Dusty's comment about pitching in back to back games was true, although the Cubs haven't had enough wins this season to warrant a closer in back to back games.

Me
Finally I would like to say that I am done with my 5th year of college as of yesterday. This year went by very fast, especially with the clinical in the middle of November to December. Last night was our year end party at one of our professor's house. Physical therapy students party as hard as about any other students almost like a little fraternity.I will miss everyone this summer when I'm back home in Indiana at my clinical.


So yes, I'm moving back home for the summer to work on my inpatient rehabilitation skills. I'm unlike a lot of 23 year olds, in that I am looking forward to being at home with my family. Anybody who knows my family knows that we are very, very tight group. It will be good to spend time with my parents, sisters, grandfathers and my aunts and uncles and cousins. This will also be my last "free" summer, after which I have to get a real job and work during the summer. Also being at home, means I can volunteer coach 10-12 year old baseball and also watch all of the Cub games I want, as long as they aren't during work.

Next year will be another challenge and I am not looking forward to it. I will be all by myself in an apartment as I have outlasted every other member of 202, my old, awesome apartment, with the best 4 guys I could have ever lived with. Interstate 94's roommate moves out to cushy Waukesha and a new house. And Interstate 94's special friend will be in Chicago, a short $1.50 IPASS toll away, but still a long way from a couple of blocks like they are now. Change sucks, but it always seems to work out in the end.

Cubs 2- Phillies 1

Sorry I haven't been blogging too much lately. Finals, 'nuff said. Zambrano had a great performance today to carry the team to the 1-run victory. I'm not too concerned yet, although the first two losses this weekend had me pretty down. Their Pythagorean according to Baseball Prospectus is still about .500, which basically means the Cubs have been unlucky this season. Hopefully the luck will turn around sometime, it always does, maybe not for the Cubs.

What the?

This might have been one of the weirdest days in my life. I knew that the announcement was coming sometime today, so I listened to the radio all afternoon. I had a practical at 6, so I took my Walkman with me to listen to the press conference. It started at about the exact time that my practial was supposed to start. I heard the first announcement, "We won't be going back to Warriors." Figures. Second announcement, "We are changing the name to the Marquette Gold." My reaction: Whhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? There were a bunch of people in the hallway with me who wanted to know what was going on and they couldn't believe it either. So now we will be known as the Marquette Gold. Whatever.

The only real problem I have with the change is that there was no student input. If you think about, they gave out the survey, and it didn't really do anything. 81% of the students wanted "Warriors." I guess you could say that the Golden Eagles Mascot could go because 50% of the students found it boring. But if even if you conclude that, you still have to let the students/alumni in on whatever the new nickname will be. This was a decision made by 38 people, kind of like 1994 all over again. I'm sure the Board did not want that fiasco again, which is why this decision dumbfounds me.

For me, I will still support the basketball program and everything else associated with this university. The Golden Eagle mascot was never associated with hanging out at Murphy's or if you think about it going to basketball games. MU means much more to me than some silly mascot, and it should for everybody.

Should Have Studied

Another bad loss for the Cubs tonight. The pitching and Zambrano were actually pretty decent. I'll take 4 runs most days, and Navarro didn't even deserve the run in the 9th. That ball should have been a single or an out. I have no idea how the scorer ruled that a triple. Patterson's "out" was a huge out that inning. Ramirez then lined that ball to right field, which Jenkins made a spectacular catch on, but who knows where he would have been playing with a man on. Lee then singled, that might have been 3 straight hits. I think that was the 6th when the Brewers got 3 runs in the bottom of that inning.

Jason DuBois hit the longest foul ball I have ever seen at Miller Park, reaching the 3rd level of seats.

Baker's boneheaded in the 8th again. I think he had already intentionally walked Overbay twice. Miller hit a foul ball for a double, a ball that just barely was fair down the right field line the time before. Walk Overbay again. Instead he pitches to him and puts another run on the board when Overbay doubled.

Bottom Line: The Cubs have to start hitting better if they think they can stay afloat this season. We'll see what happens.

Astros 9- Cubs 3

Yikes. It was a bad loss today and I'm not sure one run losses are worse emotionally. Prior had a great outing except for a horrible 5th inning when he hung an 0-2 fastball that was lined out for a grandslam. He then walked the next two batters for Adam Everett to hit a 3 run HR. Prior would say it wasn't his best performance either. Baker continues to leave Jason DuBois to rot on the bench. Today, though he graced us with some quotes on Cubs.com.

"I try to match him up against guys who are conducive for his swing," Baker said. "I asked Roger Craig when I got the job [in San Francisco] to give me one tip. He told me to match guys up in situations where they will succeed." So if he's not batting him against guys that aren't conducive to his swing, does that mean Corey Patterson doesn't bat against guys that throw high fastballs? Because those aren't conducive to his swing.

"That's really unfair," Baker said of the criticism. "How could I have that attitude? I'm trying to play the best guys to win, young or old. You have to consider what [Todd Hollandsworth] showed us last year. I know 'Holly' can hit, and I know Dubois is going to hit. " Hollandsworth showed his stuff in a limited role for 3 freaking months last season. That's not a big sample size. DuBois is playing a whole lot better right now and deserves the oppurtunity.

The problem I have with Baker is if the roles were reversed, would DuBois be seeing any playing time right now? I don't think so, Mark Bellhorn ring a bell to everyone. Thank God, we don't have to see Lenny Harris being run out to third base any time soon. A classic example was today in the 9th inning the bases were loaded with 2 outs and Hollandsworth up. John Franco a really old left hander was on the mound. Franco is so old that I have an original Starting Lineup of him. And people who know what Starting Lineups are, know that he was a star in the late '80s. DuBois should have pinch hit, but instead Hollsandsworth was left in and popped out. If a right was on the mound and DuBois was due up, I'd put a lot of money on Todd Hollandsworth stepping out of that dugout.

Cubs come to Interstate94's current residence this week. I thought it would be cool until half of my finals got moved to this week instead of next. I'll be there on Tuesday though.