Pink Bats Produce Zero Runs

As we all know Sunday was Mother’s Day, and MLB continued the great recent tradition of having players sport pink in their various baseball gear, from bats all the way down to the shoes. The fans with their mothers catching the game from the stands and the nice shout out messages from the players on tv to their own mothers were a nice, warm touch to go hand in hand with the beautiful weather Chicago had yesterday. Unfortunately the results on the field for the Cubs could not top off an otherwise great day.

At least Ryan Dempster continued his May rebound with another quality start after an ugly April. The Cubs ace scattered five hits and two runs over seven innings of work, and the best statistic in his box score line was zero walks. Jeff Samardzija and Carlos Marmol finished off the game with yet another scoreless effort tallied for the Cubs bullpen. The solid pen is one broken record the Cubs and their fans alike will gladly listen to over and over again from now until September, if not October.

The Cubs offense was the aspect of the team play that let everyone down on Sunday. Despite facing a Johnny Cueto fresh off the disabled list, the Cub failed to cash in on lead off runners reaching in each of the first two innings, as well as a bases loaded opportunities in the 3^rd and 7^th innings, a glaring insufficiency fans witnessed on Friday to open the series as well. At least Kosuke Fukudome collected one hit to keep his grip on the lead off spot for the time being. As much as Cubs fans are ready to usher him out the door at Wrigley, with Starlin Castro struggling of late, the team will need Fukudome to avoid his seasonal fades this May, as the top of the order batting spot has already been a patch work job to begin with. Castro’s slump continued despite the off day on Saturday, going 0 for 4 from the two spot in the order in place of Darwin Barney, who was given the day off.

Jordan has already discussed the power outage currently being witnessed from Aramis Ramirez, and as we enter the second week of May, he is the flavor of the month out of the Cub free agents to be that looks to be playing his way into the final year of his time calling Wrigley home now that Dempster seems to be on track. With the off day today, both the team and Cubs fans will prepare to welcome the hated rivals from St. Louis with a series that begins tomorrow. In addition to the usual buzz surrounding the match up between divisional foes, the media will be sure to dig back up the possible scenario of the Cubs pursing mega free agent to be Albert Pujols, and the idea of not resigning Ramirez would definitely add to the argument of freed up dollars to even consider purusing the current Cardinals slugger.