Cubs offense again pathetic, fall to Cards 2 - 1

Last night the Cubs bats were again nowhere to be found, they managed only 6 hits, and one run. Meanwhile they wasted a stellar effort from starter Ryan Dempster: 7IP, 2ER, 6H, 3K. Dempster was not at this best, but he was effective, throwing strikes, and keeping the ball down in the strike zone. This was good to see from him, considering he has had location issues this season, and teams have been hitting him hard when he leaves the ball up in the zone. Carlos Marmol threw a scoreless 8th inning allowing no hits and no walks. For the Cardinals, Chris Carpenter made his return from the DL, and was dominant: 5IP, 0ER, 3H. The Cubs hitters had no answer for his big curve ball. We were lucky he only went 5 innings, but we could only muster up one run off of the Cards weak bullpen.

The Cubs offense was terrible, again. The only extra-base hits they had were doubles by Ryan Theriot and Milton Bradley. Bradley, who did score the Cubs' only run, was foolishly doubled off at first early in the game. For the first 8 innings of this game the Cubs offense was in hiding. I have said it before and I will say it again, you can not expect to win (and score runs consistently) with Derrek Lee batting clean-up. Lee did have a hit, but it was a single, and he struck out twice, once while looking with a man on second. Micah Hoffpauir should have been in the line-up last night. Whether in place of Lee or Bradley, he should have been in there! Hoffpauir got one at-bat, in the ninth inning, with two outs, and hit a hard RBI single. I am fairly certain he leads the team in batting average with men in scoring position with two outs. Lou Piniella can not justify not playing him any longer, especially with Lee and Bradley struggling so much to drive in runs. No other team in the league has their best power hitter on the bench. Additionally, Alfonso Soriano had a bad game as well, 0-4 3K's, but we have to live with his streaky hitting. Nevertheless, he looked foolish at times swinging at sliders way out of the zone last night.

Tonight the Cubs look to avoid being swept by the Cards. The Cubs start Sean Marshall and the Cards are starting Adam Wainwright. Wainwright is a superior pitcher and very similar to Carpenter. Barring a miracle: either Marshall pitching really well or the Cubs actually scoring more than 3 runs, I see us losing tonight. I expect to see Hoffpauir in the line-up tonight as well. Also I would sit Lee since he has not been hitting right-handed pitching along with Geovany Soto, who can not hit a breaking ball, and Wainwright has a great curve.