For Cubs, some numbers deceiving, others painful
Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly gave a short and sweet answer Sunday night when asked if his near-no hitter of the White Sox could carry over with positive results to the rest of the homestand.
"We'll see," Lilly said. "I think we've got a group of guys who are never going to throw in the towel, who are never going to say die. There are no guarantees."
The old saying in baseball is that momentum depends on tomorrow's starting pitcher.
Were it only true for the Cubs this year. Their starting pitching has been more than adequate but it hasn't been able to carry the club simply because the offense hasn't given it much support.
Here are some numbers:
• Cubs starting pitchers have a record of 21-24 with a respectable ERA of 3.91, but the team has a record of 28-35 heading into Tuesday night's series opener against Oakland.
• The Cubs have gotten 38 quality starts from their staff. Even though the starters' ERA in those starts is a sparkling 2.09, the team's record in those starts is only 21-17 for a winning percentage of .553. With a mediocre team last year, the Cubs were 61-33 in quality-start games for a .649 winning percentage. While the bullpen was getting blamed earlier in the season for wasting good starts, the Cubs have shored up that area.
• Lilly and the Cubs beat the White Sox 1-0 Sunday night, and that improved their record to 9-15 in 1-run games. In games in which the Cubs have allowed only 3 runs, the team's record is 5-10.
• The Cubs rank 13th in the National League in runs scored, 12th on on-base percentage and 12th in walks. In those heady days of 2008, when the Cubs won the NL Central, they led the NL in runs, walks and OBP.
• First baseman Derrek Lee is batting .229 with an OBP of .338 and a low slugging percentage of .361. Lee is batting .206 in June, and with runners in scoring position, he's hitting .228.
• The Cubs don't have a true leadoff hitter. Ryan Theriot's OBP is .321, way down from his career-best of .387 in 2008. Alfonso Soriano, hardly an ideal leadoff hitter, helped the Cubs to division titles in 2007 and '08 hitting first, but manager Lou Piniella has ruled out moving Soriano back up to the top.
What all these offensive struggles have done, and Piniella acknowledged it Sunday, is force both the starters and relievers to be near-perfect on too many days.
"We haven't given our pitchers, a few of them, consistent run support," Piniella said. "It's tough on them at times. They've got to pitch with very little margin for error. Lilly's done that. They've all done that at times. Unfortunately for us as a team, we've been on the short end of it in low-scoring ballgames.
"It's hard to play perfect games. When you're not scoring runs, every little thing that happens on the field becomes magnified."
If the Cubs can't be perfect, they'll settle for just "good" at this point. If they don't get that, public pressure will build for not only Piniella and general manager Jim Hendry to make changes, but for the Ricketts family to take a hard look at a baseball regime that's been in place for eight years and may have peaked in 2008.
"Nobody's quit here," Piniella said. "Look, we need to win a few games in a row. That's been tough for us. We haven't been able to do it. You've got to keep grinding. What can I say?
"You've got to keep grinding. I come to the ballpark every day hopeful that this is the day that we start winning some baseball games and put together a nice little streak. I talked to the players, and they feel that way, too. But we got to get it done on the field."