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UP 2-0 IN THE NLDS, CAN THE CUBS PULL THE PLUG ON THE GIANTS?

· Joe Sez, The Playoffs · , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

GIANTS-FLATLINE

Hey there, ice chips. How ’bout those friggin’ Cubs, huh?! I gotta tell ya, I luuuuuuvvvvv flyin’ the playoff W. I’d say it makes me feel like I’m on top of the world but that’s kinda stupid. I mean think about it. First — SPOILER ALERT — there’s no Santa Claus up there and second, it’s butt ass cold. It’d be a lot more accurate to say I’m feelin’ like I’m sittin’ on a clothing-optional beach in Bora Bora, the missus has exercised her option, and is feedin’ me pork sliders while I sip on a frosty Old Style. Yeah, that about captures it. Thank you for that, Cubbies.

Anyway, as the Central Division Champs are makin’ their way to the city of whackadoos for Game 3 against the Giants, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on the meaning of the oldest phrase in baseball: Keep your eye on the friggin’ ball.

Lemme start by sayin’ that anyone who pays attention to my microscopic corner of the Cubs universe knows that I live and die with them. If that’s you, 1) thank you for payin’ attention and 2) you know that my 55 seasons have seen a whole lot more dyin’ than livin’. That’s given me a certain … let’s say … perspective. I tend to call it like I see it, rather than wearin’ Cubbie blue shaded glasses. Sometimes the Schlombowski forecast is “cloudy with a chance of losing.” Hey, I don’t make the weather, pal, I just report it.

Don’t get me wrong. I not only think the Cubs are in the driver’s seat right now, I think the Giants have been stuffed into the trunk and are about to get dumped on the side of a dark, winding road out in the middle of the redwoods.

IF they keep their eye on the ball, that is.

And I don’t mean pickin’ up the rotation on Bumgarner’s cheese and watchin’ it all the way to the plate. What I mean is that bein’ up 2-0 to the Giants, even in a best-of-5 series, isn’t a Labron James better-get-the-hell-outta-my-way slam dunk, unless we do one thing: stay focused on the ball that matters — winnin’ the World Series. To me, that mean’s not actin’ like we just won the friggin’ lottery cuz the first two games went our way, or cuz our pitchers have turned into Babe Ruth, or cuz Wood just penned his name in the record books. The Cubs gotta go about their business like they’re mailmen or something. You know … that whole “neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night” thing. Only with us it’s “Neither Mad-Bum, nor Posey, nor wicked line drives off our pitchers will keep us from our appointed victory over the Halloween-colored San Francisco Giants.” Do I think that’s gonna happen? You bet your sweet ivy-covered ass I do. Do I think it’s gonna be easy? Read on, my friend:

The Giants have won three World Series since 2010 and they’re 9-0 in elimination games since 2012. Nine and friggin’ oh! Is that something to sneeze at? No, is the answer. It is not.

In 2012, San Francisco was given a stay of execution twice … TWICE! First, when they came back from a 2-0 deficit to the Reds in the NLDS. Then, after fallin’ behind the Cards 3-1 in the Championship Series, they not only Johnny Cochran’d their way outta the noose, they ended up with a friggin’ ring.

Jump forward to 2014 — yeah, yeah, another even numbered year. The Giants win the Wild Card against the Pirates.

Ditto 2016 against the Mets.

And let’s not forget the Giants figured a way to win Game 7 of the ’14 World Series in Kansas City after losin’ 10-nothin’ in Game 6.

Tomorrow’s starter, Madison Bumgarner is a whopping 12-3 as a starter in the playoffs.

Yeah, sounds like a real piece of cake, for sure.

If I’m Joe Maddon insteada Joe Schlombowski (and boy, wouldn’t that give the missus a reason to do cartwheels) I’m not countin’ any chickens just yet. I’m not even mentioning the word “chicken.” In fact I’m Google mappin’ things so the team bus avoids any route where there’s even a remote possibility of a KFC sighting between the hotel and the ball park. And I sure as hell am not havin’ one of those lighten-the-mood onesie parties. It’s time to keep the eye on the friggin’ ball.

Point is, the Giants are a damn good team. They aren’t about to roll over just cuz their waxed backs are against the ivy-covered wall.

However … there IS a silver lining. Yes, occasionally there happens to be one of those around the Schlombowski black cloud. And here why:

In their 3 post-season games so far, San Francisco has sent 102 batters to the plate and only 3 of ’em have produced runs. There are a lot of ways to describe that. Personally, though? I like “pathetic.” That kinda graveyard performance may be good enough to beat a team like the Mets, but we’re not the Mets.

Two words: Jake Arrieta. Our Cy Young winnin’, no-hit, cannon-armed flame thrower will be takin’ the mound tomorrow night. You wanna talk black clouds? I give you Hurricane Arrieta. Things don’t get much darker than that for the Giants.

Just for grins, let’s say the Giants escape one more time, by some fluke of whatever — like Arrieta is hit by lightning, or Rob Manfred institutes another one of his “speed the game up” rules, stipulating the Cubs get only 1 batter per inning. I’m still gonna bring my Alfred E. Neuman face out, cuz Hendricks is still fresh, Lackey and Hammel have yet to throw, and even Lester could come back for game 5 if needed (it won’t be).

Have I mentioned the stacked Chicago Cubs lineup? The Cubs are like Dolly-Parton-with-a-boob-job stacked. Bryant, Rizzo, Zobrist. Boom, boom and boom. I’ll put our bats up against anyone’s. So I don’t really give a crap if Madison friggin’ Bumgarner is on the bump. Gettin’ through the Cubs order without needin’ oxygen is highly unlikely.

Pinch hitters Wood and Hendricks.

Aroldis “you can’t hit what you can’t see” Chapman.

Rondon and Strop to set him up.

Joe Maddon’s King Kong-sized brain.

I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. That is: The Giants are a tough ball club, especially when the chips are down. But if the Cubs keep their eyes on the friggin’ ball, that’s just not gonna matter.

Joe

ON BEHALF OF KYLE HENDRICKS, I’D LIKE TO SAY, “HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THAT LEARNER’S PERMIT CRAP.”

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , , , , ,

KYLE-HENDRICKS-ART-FINAL

I just read Steve Rosenbloom’s piece in the Trib, where he says “Kyle Hendricks is pitching like Jake Arrieta with a learner’s permit.” His words exactly … all the way down to the imitation road-to-the-White-House snarkiness. I’m not quite certain why he felt compelled to say that about the Cubs’ best pitcher, but the piece reads like Rosenbloom keeps a life size blow up from Arrieta’s ESPN The Magazine spread push-pinned to his bedroom ceiling.

To be fair, Rosenbloom does point out that Hendricks is “pretty close” to Arrieta in a number of stats, and that he “pitches efficiently and quickly” and has a brilliant changeup. He’s also actually makin’ an argument in an “excuse me” kinda way for why Hendricks oughta win the Cy Young this year. But man, you gotta read between the Arrieta syrup to tell. Almost every paragraph compares Hendricks to Jake, one statistic after another. And, hey … I wouldn’t have an issue with that at all except for this: Rosenbloom is crunchin’ this year’s Hendricks numbers against Arrieta’s last year. Is that kosher? Not in the Schlombowski deli, it’s not. That’s just a large, economy-size serving of twisted statistical crap with no pickle on the side. It’s the same kinda shady comparison tactics used by this year’s vermin-like presidential candidates. You might wanna just hang onto that $50 Pulitzer entry fee on this one, Steve.

This apples and oranges way of evaluating the effectiveness of anyone is beneath someone of Rosenbloom’s journalistic achievements. I mean, we could just as easily compare the 2016 Arrieta against the ’73 Tom Seaver, the ’00 Pedro Martinez, the ’69 Bob Gibson (among others) and paint a picture that makes Jake look like the bat boy. Hey, I got an idea, Steve, why don’t we put the 2016 Hendricks up against the 2013 Arrieta? Or the 2012 version. Or 2011 or ’10. The only true, honest, level-playin’-field comparison between these two hurlers this year is lookin’ at this season’s numbers. You do that and the balance tips in Hendricks’s favor. Plus, there’s no arguing the fact that Hendricks has picked up a lotta the slack created by Jake misplacin’ his cape this year. That’s not to say he hasn’t had a solid year … he has. But it wasn’t the other-worldly thing he conjured up last year, as you’ll read in Rosenbloom’s piece.

Hendricks came outta Spring Training desperately clingin’ to the 5th starter role, while Jake was struttin’ around Ho Ho Kam like the Cy Young winner he is. I woulda too, if I was him. And for the first couple a months of the season I’d have sworn we were watchin’ instant replay of the second half of 2014. In fact, it wasn’t until Arrieta started chatterin’ about a $250M contract that the wheels started wobblin’ on his wagon. Coincidence? I tend to think focusing on money 2 years before your contract is up puts demons between your ears, which is especially bad for pitchers cuz they’re often borderline head cases already. He seems to have found his cape again, though. Which is good for everyone except whoever the Cubs face in the playoffs.

The fact is, the entire rotation has been mostly great, most of the season. And, with Lester, Hendricks and Arrieta we’ve got 3 of the most dominant pitchers in baseball. But Hendricks has gone from 5th starter to being the man behind the wheel … and it hasn’t been with a friggin’ learner’s permit.

Joe

THE CUBS ARE MAKIN’ ME FEEL MORE LIKE JOE FRIDAY THAN JOE SCHLOMBOWSKI.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez · , , , ,

CUBS-STAKE-OUT

It’s mid-summer, hot in the big city. I’ve been workin’ a stake-out on the north side outta the Fraud division. My partner, the ever faithful Cubs fan, and I have been watchin’ the alleged perps — a group calling themselves the Cubs and masquerading as a possible World Series contender — since April. As stake-outs go, this one has been a cake walk; I get to watch baseball everyday and drink on the job. Perfect.

Stake-outs are curious affairs. You can watch your ass off for weeks — months, even — and nothin’ seems unusual. Until it is. I guess the Cubs bein’ the best team in baseball for 3 months shoulda been the first sign that somethin’ was rotten in Denmark AND Chicago. But everything has seemed Jim Dandy.

Until now.

That’s the thing about a baseball season — it’s friggin’ long, my friend. Because of that, it has a way of betraying you, of trippin’ you up and revealing the truth — stuff you’d rather keep hidden from fans so they keep thinkin’ you are who you’ve led them to believe.

You know how detectives get hunches? (What the hell is a “hunch” anyway? I know there was a guy from Notre Dame that had one on his back once. Probably kept him off the football team. And there’s no way he was gettin’ lucky lookin’ like that.) Anyway, detectives get hunches a lot, and they seem to help get to the bottom of things. A couple of months ago, I had what I’m guessing was my own hunch-like thing about our bullpen. I let it go for a while, cuz everything was Jake. Now … after 3 months of waiting and watching, and watching and waiting, it looks like I was right, cuz we’re startin’ to see exactly what kinda pen we’ve got. And I don’t think it can be trusted.

Complicatin’ things is the near felonious collapse of our rotation’s dominance. Even Arrieta, who’d been unbeatable since last season’s All-Star break, has slipped into the shadows; walkin’ guys, givin’ up runs and losin’ 3 of his last 4 starts. This kinda stuff starts to reveal the pen’s weaknesses cuz now we gotta rely on them a lot more than we had to earlier in the season.

Our hitting hasn’t exactly been by the book either. Outta the 30 Major League teams, we’re 28th in leavin’ guys on base. Criminal. The good news is that we’re scorin’ more runs per game than everybody in the National League, but with a tired rotation and more reliance on the bullpen, it’s not enough anymore.

You don’t have to be James Comey to see what happens when you start connectin’ the dots. When you examine the evidence — the lackluster hitting, the less dominant rotation and a suspect bullpen — you start to see a pattern emerge; one that’s exposing the effects of our youth on our defense. I don’t think we need to mobilize a SWAT (So What About it, Theo) team or anything, but there’s mounting evidence that somethin’s gotta change.

If you look at the facts, they always reveal the truth, my friend. And the fact is, we’re 9-16 in our last 25 games, and we’ve lost 8 of our last 9. Is this temporary, or is it merely revealing a truth that no Cubs fan wants to cop to? Like I said, it’s a long season, and the stake-out is only half over. It’s no time to pass judgement over what could be the best Cubs team in over a century. But from where I sit, watching and waiting — not to mention hopin’ and prayin’ — I’d like to see a little less disregard for the baseball gods and a little more respect for what it’s gonna take to get to the Series, let alone come out smellin’ like a champion.

Joe (Schlombowski, not Friday)

PS. The story you have just read is true, but no names have been changed to protect the innocent.

ARRIETA INKS A DEAL WITH LA STELLA.

· 2016 Cubs, Joe Sez, News · , ,

ARRIETA-TATTOO

Hey there, bottle rockets. I just read where Mr Arrieta has to get a Coastal Carolina University tattoo cuz he lost a bet with Tommy La Stella over the College World Series. La Stella’s Chanticleers beat Arrieta’s Horned Frogs, putting the roosters (that’s what a Chanticleers is, but — full disclosure — I had to look that one up) in the College World Series finals.

The question remains: Where to inscribe the aforementioned barnyard animal?

At the risk of being indelicate — although really … this is Joe Schlombowski talkin’ here, so would you expect anything less? — I think there’s just one rather OBVIOUS anatomical appendage of the sculpted Arrieta frame that would be ideal for an image of a Chanticleer, otherwise known as a … rooster. (Unless you’re a White Sox fan, you can probably figure that one out.) Now, I have no personal knowledge of just exactly how obvious Mr Arrieta’s rooster is … but given he plays for the Cubs, is one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball, and has put a couple of notches in his no-hitter belt in the last year, I think we can agree that it falls into the “Big Swinging” category.

This brings up a couple of other questions, neither of which I have any intention of devoting even one second of thought to: 1) Would the artist have to order additional ink to finish the job? and 2) Would the Chanticleer be applied before or during the stretching of the proverbial canvas?

Alright. That’s just headed to a place that I don’t really wanna go. Time to watch some Baywatch reruns or somethin’.

Remember this, my friend: Tattoo bets always end badly for one participant, and you got a 50% chance of it bein’ you. Think before you bet with ink.

Joe

THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT JAKE ARRIETA.

· Joe Sez, News · , , ,

ARRIETA-ESPN-BODY-ISSUE

You know that part in Bull Durham when Nuke LaLoosh is pitchin’ naked, and then Crash wakes him up and they talk about it like it’s a common baseball player dream? I always thought that was just a big Hollywood cow pie designed to make baseball players interesting to movie critics. Nope. In fact, Arrieta is livin’ his own Nuke LaLoosh dream in ESPN the Magazine’s “Body Issue” (coming out July 6th).

Now I don’t have anything against nudity. The missus will definitely confirm that aside from the Cubs using the Cards for a roll of Charmin, I’m at my jolliest when she’s all dressed up in her birthday suit and there’s nothin’ good on TV. And I’ve let more than my share of guys cut in front of me at the barber shop cuz I was busy checkin’ out the naughty bits of the Playmate of the Month. But I gotta draw the line at Jake Arrieta, my friend.

First of all — and this point is so major it counts for 3 points all by itself — Arrieta is a guy. I don’t really give a crap that he has some super human healthy lifestyle and is built like the Rock. Nobody wants to see the J-man’s bat swingin’ in the wind. Maybe Mrs Arrieta. Maybe some of the bimbettes I see swooning at Wrigley when 49 is pitchin’. Maybe the guys over in Boystown. But that’s it. If I wanna see a guy naked, I can look in the mirror. In fact, it’s because of the naked guy starin’ at me in the mirror in morning that I don’t wanna see Arrieta, or Dwyane Wade, or all 300+ pounds of Vince Wilfork pretending their in a Michelangelo fresco. No offense to athletes and their athletic bodies, but as long as the Internet is still plugged in, there’s greener grass. Know what I’m sayin’?

Now I’m sure there’s some sorta Freudian head-shrinker mumbo-jumbo that can explain why one of the best pitchers in baseball felt compelled to pitch naked in the desert for ESPN. But if I’m pullin’ down Arrieta’s pay check, I don’t really need the money. So what is it? I know there are parts of San Francisco where you can just walk around in broad friggin’ daylight without a stitch and it’s ok. Maybe Arrieta is one of those kinda guys. I don’t know. Pitchers are a different breed. Mark Fidrych used to garden on the mound. Carlos Zambrano had to be hauled off the field in a straight jacket with monotonous regularity. And Al Hrabosky? Well, let’s just say big Al wasn’t called “the mad Hungarian” for nothing.

And where’s the front office? You tellin’ me Theo is good with this? Where’s Major League Baseball? Usually orgs like those are screwed down so tight you can’t slouch in your chair without gettin’ fined. Posin’ nude? That’d usually get your naked ass fired. I guess this is a non-factor, though, cuz this particular issue of ESPN the Magazine, along with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue (girls, though … really hot ones) are generally accepted … and mostly tasteful. That and the itty bitty fact that Arrieta is pitchin’ like some sorta Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, 50mm Howitzer mishmash this season. In my opinion, though, if God had wanted ballplayers to pose nude he wouldn’t have invented pinstripes.

Of course, I could be wrong. But I’m not.

Joe