Cubs have sunk boatload of quality starts

Cubs manager Lou Piniella knows his team is wasting a lot of good starting pitching.

The Cubs entered Tuesday second in the National League with 48 quality starts. In those starts, Cubs pitchers had an ERA of 2.20, but the team was just 26-22.

Teams figure to have a much greater winning percentage when getting quality starts, but the Cubs' offense has cost the pitchers. The Cubs entered Tuesday having scored 3 or fewer runs in seven of their last nine games.

The Cubs were 11-18 in 1-run decisions and 4-8 in 2-run decisions.

"You look back at our season for the first half of it, and we're in a ton of games," Piniella said. "A lot of the 1-run games, the volume of games we play, leads itself to that type of thing. Everybody's going to get blown out at times, and you should blow out the opposition at times.

"When your pitching staff is playing a lot of low-scoring ballgames, it tells you you're going to get a good percentage of quality starts. We've competed well, starting-pitching wise. With the bullpen, we've had a little bit of a flux. What we've been doing with our starting pitching, quite frankly, is just going a little deeper into the games."

Carlos Silva and Ryan Dempster lead the Cubs with 11 quality starts each. Unless the Cubs start hitting with some regularity, they figure to waste more good pitching.

"You can't give up runs," Piniell said. "You've got to play perfect games. And it's very difficult to play perfect games."