Future consideration for Cubs: young players, Garza
There were a couple of interesting storylines as far as the Cubs were concerned coming out of Sunday night's game against the New York Mets at Citi Field.
Both concerned how the team would look moving forward into 2012.
The first was manager Mike Quade's lineup, which included Bryan LaHair in left field, Tony Campana in center and DJ LeMahieu at third base.
LaHair continued to make his case to be included in the picture for 2012 as he doubled twice and walked in his first three times up before adding another walk in the seventh inning.
The Cubs scored 6 runs in the 11th (before the Mets added 2 in the bottom half) to win 10-6.
“The veterans have all been there and done that, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to play those guys tonight,” manager Mike Quade told reporters, referring to the young players. “And also, it's not completely void of matchup stuff. We'll see how it plays out, but I'm going to have fun watching them.”
The second story to watch regarding the Cubs was starting pitcher Matt Garza, who may or may not be the ace of the Cubs' staff heading into next year.
Garza entered the game with a record of 8-10 but with an ERA of 3.52. He was one of only four pitchers in the National League's top 25 in ERA with as few as 8 wins this season.
In January, Garza came to the Cubs in a trade with Tampa Bay, which received such highly touted prospects as pitcher Chris Archer, infielder Hak-Ju Lee and outfielder Brandon Guyer.
The Cub were convinced they had acquired no worse than a No. 2 starting pitcher and perhaps a future ace in the 27-year-old Garza.
Garza's ERA this year is below the National League average ERA of 3.83, and his WHIP (walks plus hits per 1 inning pitched) was right on the NL average of 1.31. Sunday night against the Mets, Garza worked 7 innings, giving up 7 hits and 3 runs.
The Cubs and Mets traded first-inning runs, with LaHair hitting a two-out double and coming home on Carlos Pena's RBI double.
The Cubs scored twice in the third after two were out, with Tyler Colvin driving home 2 with a single. Colvin had an RBI triple in the fifth inning to put the Cubs ahead 4-1 before the Mets made it a 1-run game in the sixth with a two-out rally against Garza.
Garza wound up throwing 102 pitches and being victimized by a blown save by Jeff Samardzija, who gave up the tying run in the eighth. Lefty Sean Marshall came on to start the inning in relief of Garza and put two runners on base and getting one out. Samardzija got one out and looked to be out of the inning when pinch hitter Justin Turner bounced one back to the mound.
Samardzija knocked the ball down, but his throw got past Pena at first base for an error leading to the tying run to score.