Len & Bob's baseball blog

CONGRATS to Michael Brenly! Here's to a great Major League Career!

Hello Len and Bob! I'm Chris, from West Bend, WI. Me and my Gramma watch every cub game and enjoy listening to you too! Suppose to say congrats to Bob for his son! Go Cubbies and have fun!

Len & Bob here is something interesting I came across the other day. Mark DeRosa and I were born in the same county (Passaic) in New Jersey in the same year (1975). He was born in Feb and I was July. Too bad I didn't get his skills, but then again I may have never met my wife and have an adorable little girl!!

Just wondering why the cubs are not being patient at the dish? The last 2-3 games they have been swinging at 1st and 2nd pitches? Thank you Rob from Florida.

Congrats to the Brenly family and GO CUBS!

Congrats to Bob on Brenly Part Deux!

If you don't know it, for about 2 weeks now, the background noice has been so bad that I have been forced to listed to the broadcasts on radio, or watch the other teams broadcast on MLB.TV.

John Lackey
Mesa, AZ

Woody has been good all year. Marmol has been unhitable at times, and Howry is starting to come around. The back end of our bullpen has been one of the strongest parts of our team, and I hope it continues.

Hi Len And Bob,
My name is Kelli Sanders, I live in Milan Tennessee.
My Husband Travis and I have a wonderful little boy that just turned 8 last weekend that eat, sleeps, and drinks Chicago Cubs. Could you please tell tell him Happy Birthday for us possibly during tonights game? He would and we would appreciate it so much. He would never forget it!!!
We Love You All and the Cubs!!!
The Sanders from Milan Tennessee

Len - you are mispronouncing St. Xavier University. The X is silent. It's pronounced "zavier". Great job otherwise.

If Len and Bob get anymore "retro" they'll go back in time! I'm a late 50's & 60's Cub fan. Sorry I can't get anymore "retro" than that.
Congradulations Bob on the son getting drafted, wish him all the best! After all he's in the best team ever to take the diamond.
Being a Dad I can imagine how proud you must be of your son! Congrads again Sir.

I think with all of the success the team has had early on, some things have gotten distorted in how they are viewed.....

1) Cubs are awful on the road. Well, true they are not very good on the road. But, has anyone looked at all of the road records? There are only TWO National League teams with winning road records...and one of those just occurred this weekend. Philly holds the best spot thanks to their sweep of a very good home team Atlanta Braves. But their record is only 18-13. The only other winning record is the Cardinals at 17-14. The rest of the teams are under .500 beginning with Houston at 16-21, and the Giants at 15-16. The Marlins are 14-15 and our Cubs are 14-16. So we are only just a few games back from what the league is doing. The Braves are a prime example of playing poorly on the road with an anemic 7-21 record. Now THAT is playing awful. Hope it continues in Chicago.

It's the same trend in the American League with only ONE team over .500 and ONE at .500. The Angels play very well on the road and are 21-12. Good thing they play so well on the road because they are not very dominating at home. (18-13). The crosstown White Sox are at .500 with a 17-17 record. Everyone else is under .500 including the Red Sox who are tied with the Cubbies for the most wins overall. In fact the Red Sox are 14-20 on the road as compared to 26-6 at home. Sound familiar??

So all in all I think we need to back off the panic that the Cubs cannot win on the road. Seems to be the trend of baseball.

Next is how awful Jason marquis is. I'll admit I'm not his number one fan, but ESPN had an interesting stat tonight. Jason is 3-0 in his last 5 starts and has allowed 3 runs or fewer in each of them. he hasn't been perfect by any means...like to squeeze one more inning out of him...but then again if we consider him the number 4 or 5 guy, many times they only go 5 or 6 innings...which is what he is doing. He has had three games where he walked 5 guys. That has to change. But he also only lost one of those games.

In 2 June games he is 2-0 with a 2.38 ERA. As mentioned he is 3-0 in his last 5 starts. He hasnt allowed a homerun in his last 3 games. He hasnt allowed more than one homerun in any game that he did give one up.

In his 12 starts this year he has given up 3 or fewer runs in 8 of those 12. Thats not too bad. In those other 4 he gave up 4 runs twice and 5 runs twice.

His record is 4-3 with 5 No Decisions. In those 5 no decisions the Cubs are 3-2 and should be 4-1. One of the losses was a blown save in Pittsburgh by Kerry in the 9th. And the one game that the Cubs lost, Jason pitched 7 innings and only gave up 2 runs! So the Cubs are 7-5 in games pitched by Jason, and should be 8-4 counting that game the save was blown. Thats not bad. Your tail end rotation guys are not generally going to eat up innings, their job is to keep you in ballgames and give the team a chance to win. Thats what is happening.

He basically had three bad starts and they all came in a row when he lost to Milwukee, St Louis and San Diego in a row giving up 5 runs to both Milwaukee and St. Louis and 4 to San Diego. Take those starts away and he has only given up more than 3 runs once this year and that was his first start and a game that the Cubs won. All pitchers will have a few stinkers, Carlos just had a clunker in LA andit wasnt his first. And he's the ACE.

In fact here's a comparison between Carlos and Jason....Carlos is 8-2 with 4 No Decisions. In those 4 no decisions the Cubs are 1-3. (Like Jason's record, this also includes one blown save by Kerry) So when the ace Zambrano picthes the Cubs are 9-5. Call it 10-4 if you account for the blown save. As mentioned if you account for the blown save for Jason the team is 8-4 in his games.

So either way, the Cubs have the same amount of losses when Carlos or Jason picthes....and only two more wins for Carlos...which is because he has pitched two more games.

Jason has had 4 games that he allowed 4 or more runs. Carlos has allowed 4 or more 3 times. Just one fewer. Also, Carlos allowed 7 runs in LA. Jason's high is 5.

What this shows is that Marquis may not put up the flashy numbers like Carlos, but he is not the staff ace either. He sure is holding his own for a number 4-5 man in the rotation.

I think Cub fans need to enjoy what we have going and not look at everything so negatively. Let's embrace the team and support every one of them as we look for out first championship team in 100 years!!

I just watched the Cubs play in Los Angeles and I took my 4 year old Grandaughter who watches the Cubs with me on WGN. The first game we attended she saw other children getting balls that were thrown into the crowd and she really wanted a Cub to throw her a ball. The next day we bought seats by the Cub's bullpen and she was waiting by the fence watching the Cubs warm up. Before the game started, the bullpen catcher threw her a ball. She was in heaven. The pride on her face was overwhelming. To top it all off, Carlos Marmel was walking into the bullpen and we asked him to sign her ball. He gestered for us to wait, and after Big Z left the bullpen to start the game he came over to sign her ball. She called her mother on the phone and was so excited that she had a signed ball. I have attended many Cub's games and I had the honor to have my picture taken with Mike Krukow when I was young. I just wanted to thank the bullpen catcher and Carlos Marmel for noticing a little girl in Cubs attire and making her wish come true. My family have always been Cubs fans and it makes it all worthwhile that people like Carlos Marmel know how important fans are.