Cubs Fall Below .800 at Home

Now a meager 32-9 in the Friendly Confines, the Cubs will try and bounce-back Wednesday night against the Baltimore Orioles. They have a good shot against Brian Burres, after facing the cream of the Baltimore staff on Tuesday.

Despite loading the bases with nobody out in the 9th, the Cubs failed to score, as George Sherrill struck-out the side, with Cedeno, Fukudome and Blanco producing some pretty ugly at bats. If they can handle the late inning guys, or avoid them, in the next two games, they'll win the three game set.

Jeremy Guthrie was in complete control until the 6th, getting into trouble and paying the price on Edmond's blast. Guthrie is probably the best starter the Orioles have to offer, and Burres and Liz should not be as stingy. Should not be, but the Cubs will have to do better than they did on their last three at bats tonight, which I'll get back to at the end of this post.

Jim Johnson came in to pitch the 7th, worked into the 8th, gave way to Chad Bradford, who got just one out. George Sherrill did the high-wire act for the last four outs.

Johnson came out throwing a good two-seamer. Since most of Soto and all of DeRosa's at bats against Johnson are missing, here's a look at what he threw to Theriot, who grounded out 43.

First up is spin movement, viewed from the catcher's perspective. This is the number of inches left (-) or right (+) the ball moved due to spin, along with drop/rise due to backspin or topspin. All ball doesn't rise, unless your Bradford, perhaps, but it may stay higher than you'd predict based on gravity and trajectory.



The labels (click the image to enlarge) are pitch # and pitch type above the MPH at release.



The plate locations are what matter. This is catcher's view, strike zone is a little wider than rulebook, but the height is set to Theriot's zone. A two-seamer down and in, followed by a slider, and another two-seamer, all in the same area. The slider starts like it will be inside, but drops nicely low and out of the zone. Now he's shown Theriot three pitches down near his knees, got a ball (the slider) and a couple of strikes - a take on the first pitch and a foul ball on the third. That's when Johnson goes up and away, first with the breaking ball, then with another fastball. End of inning, Roberts to Millar.

Johnson got into trouble in the 8th, and Bradford came in and threw a little gasoline down. He did offer a severe contrast in release points.



With Sherrill, I'll cut to the chase. Chase, which is what the Cubs did. He embarrassed Cedeno on three pitches. Each was a four-seamer, and Ronny ended up going after pitches way up out of the zone; it was ugly. Here's the spin movement.



These charts are from catcher's view, so you can clearly see, in the next chart (plate location) just how far out of the zone those were. Except the first pitch, which was a good pitch, which Ronny fouled off.



Threw one under the brim of Fukudome's helmet before making him look bad. After the heater at the head, he threw one outside that missed the plate, but was called a strike. Then, with that in mind, Kosuke swung and missed badly at two sliders.




Henry Blanco came out, swung way ahead of a first-pitch breaking ball down and in, and then had no chance after that, game over. Again, spin movement followed by plate locations.





So, three of the Cubs' weakest hitters killed what looked like a nice rally, but we're done with their best starter, and we've seen their best three relievers.