Cubs lose to Cards 3-1, get swept out of St. Louis

Last night the Cubs offense was horrible. Again scoring only one run while combining for 5 hits. Just like I said Adam Wainwright dominated for the Cardinals: 8.2IP, ER, 5H, 7K. He was pulled in the 9th when he allowed a Derrek Lee single. Ryan Franklin, who is apparently untouchable (at least for the Cubs hitters), recorded the final out. Sean Marshall started last night for the Cubs and was not great: 5IP, 3R, 2ER, 4H, 3K. He was not bad either, but the two home runs he allowed to Albert Pujols and Brian Barden, were enough to lose the game. In my opinion, Marshall should be moved to the bullpen and Randy Wells should join the rotation. Wells is the hot pitcher right now and Marshall just is not that good. At least the Cubs bullpen was solid last night as Jose Ascanio, Neal Cotts, and Angel Guzman combined for three scoreless innings to end the game.

There is not much to talk about offensively from last night. Lou Piniella, after saying he needed to get Micah Hoffpauir and Koyie Hill some at-bats during last night's press conference, played neither. Instead he went with basically the same line-up as the last two nights, except he started Ryan Freel at third-base and Mike Fontenot at second-base. Without Hoffpauir in the line-up we had no pop last night. Freel was 0-3 and is hitting .100, he also made a costly throwing error that led to an un-earned run for Marshall. However, later in the game Freel made one of the best plays I have seen by a Cubs third-baseman in awhile, so I feel that the jury is still out on him being a regular at third-base. Bobby Scales scored the Cubs only run, when he walked while pinch-hitting for Marshall. Fukudome drove in Scales with an RBI single with two outs in the 6th inning, he was 1-4 on the night. Derrek Lee was the only Cub with two hits, both singles. I like to see Lee hitting, it is just that he is hitting only singles. As a clean-up hitter he needs to drive the ball more. The Cubs do not have a need for another singles hitter, they have plenty already, they need power in the middle of the order. Geovany Soto had the teams only extra-base hit, a double. It is pathetic that the Cubs are only getting one extra-base hit a game, we can not win like this, we do not have enough speed. The fifth Cubs hit was a single by Marshall, maybe he can bat clean-up too?. Meanwhile, neither Hoffpauir nor Hill even got an at-bat. Milton Bradley hit the ball hard three times, but had nothing to show for it, going 0-4, and watching his batting average slip to .184. Fontenot also had another poor game, 0-3, and now has a BA of .195.

Tonight the Cubs go to San Diego to face the Padres and P Jake Peavy. Note to Lou: Play Hoffpauir, I do not care how you fit him in the line-up, just play him! Especially against a tough right-hander like Peavy. Tonight I would sit Lee, despite his "hot streak", because he does not hit right-handers well. Also, Hoffpauir is not good enough defensively to play right field in spacious Petco Park. I also expect to see either Hill or Scales in the line-up as well. Carlos Zambrano will make his first start since injuring himself while running out a bunt on May 3rd. Hopefully he will be a spark to this zombie-like Cubs team, heck we could really use his bat right now. Zambrano was not particularly sharp in his minor league outing, but the Padres line-up is incredibly weak (as we saw last week), and Petco Park is a real pitcher's park. Then again, maybe Peavy will shut the Cubs out, and show Jim Hendry why we need to acquire him.

Note: This is the only non-interleague series in MLB this weekend. I am OK with this, the Cubs would get smoked by just about any AL team right about now (except the White Sox, Mariners, A's, and Orioles), given they can not score any runs.