Last night the Cubs won game 1 of a three game series vs the visiting Cincinnati Reds. Cubs starter, Rich Harden, reverted back to his 2008 form with a strong outing: 6IP, 3H, 2ER, 8 k's. Aramis Ramirez was the offensive star of the night going 3 for 5 with 3 RBIs (all with 2 outs).
Micah Hoffpauir, who got the start in RF, also had a nice game with a solo-HR and a sacrifice fly. With the way he is hitting: .375, HR, 5RBIs; I find it hard for Lou Piniella to keep him out of the lineup, especially with Derrek Lee struggling offensively as always: .200 AVG, HR, 9RBIs in 50 at-bats and only 16 total bases, which essentially means he's hitting few extra-base hits. By comparison, Hoffpauir has 11 total bases in only 16 at-bats. I expect Milton Bradley to come back eventually, especially with the warm weather that is expected this weekend, meaning Hoffpauir will see limited time in the outfield. So why not give Hoffpauir some starts at first base? My opinion is that Piniella should platoon Lee and Hoffpauir. Lee has struggled for over a year, how much longer are the Cubs going to give him chances? At least he has not grounded into any double-plays this season.
In bullpen news, Aaron Heilman threw a scoreless 7th, and appears to be the "bridge guy" (who gets us from the starter to Marmol), he threw strikes, which is good. On the other hand, Neal Cotts was terrible again, in 0.1 IP he gave up a single and walked the next batter on 4 pitches. Something is clearly wrong with Cotts, he can not find the strike-zone consistently, it should only be a matter of time before he is sent down to Triple-A or released. Cotts' poor outing forced Piniella to bring in Carlos Marmol to get out of the jam in the 8th, which he did. I'm sure Piniella would rather not have used Marmol, but he had too, hopefully he does not burn him out this season.
Jackass call of the day
Derrek Lee's decision to hop when he thought he hit a home run to left only to see the ball stay in the park (per usual) only to be dropped by the Reds outfielder. For a guy who hits home runs as frequently as an eclipse, he should probably remove the hop from his routine.
*Also, I forgot to mention this, but the Cubs left 24 runners on base last night. This number has to go down, we are leaving far too many runners on. Right now we are getting away with it, because we are still scoring runs, but what happens when we get shut out and leave that many guys on base? Bottom Line: the Cubs need to do a better job hitting with RISP! Especially Alfonso Soriano, who left 5 on base last night. It seems that everytime he comes up with the bases loaded he strikes out swinging at sliders.
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