Woody's Back Out of Wack

As reliable as the first robin, rainshowers, and flowers blooming, there is no more reliable sign of spring then a Kerry Wood injury.  Yes, right before the announcement that he would be the team's closer, Kerry had to be scratched from the lineup because of back spasms.  Pinella says

"It's just a stiff back [for Wood] and nothing more, and it could happen to anybody. That's why we have seven pitchers in the bullpen. That's why we'll carry a long reliever, so if a starter comes to the ballpark and can't start that day, we'll have a starter in his place. This is why you have 13 position players as opposed to eight or nine. Things happen. "

Yes Lou, things happen.  But they always seem to happen to Wood. Whether it is falling out of a shower, or slipping out of a hot tub or whatever, it happens to Wood.  He was supposed to be the second coming on Nolan Ryan, yet he never had more than 14 wins in a season.  On Tuesday, Pinella said Kerrry's next test would be to throw consecutive days, Wenesday and Thursday.  But now, with today's scratch, the Cubs don't want to have Wood pitch tomorrow, then take a two hour bus trip to Scottsdale for Friday's game.  But isn't that a closer's job? This is just not good.  You need a dependable closer that can pitch two, three days in a row.  Look at any of the top closers stats, and you will see that they pitch in 60-70 games.  Can Woody hand'e the workload.  Lou also added

"We have three people here that in my mind that can close and I'm very comfortable with," he said of Wood, Carlos Marmol and Bob Howry. "So a bad back doesn't change our plans, but we do still want to see him throw the ball back-to-back, and we want him to pitch an inning plus (in a game)."

Let's look at those three choices.  You have Wood, who is constantly injured and very unreliable.  You have Howry that always starts out the first half slow, then gets stronger as the season goes on.  And then you have Marmol, who has had control issues for the last few weeks.  Lou keeps talking about getting off to a fast start, but that is hard to do if your bullpen keeps blowing games, as the Cubs found out last season

Unfortunately, the Wood back spasm story overshadows the good start that Ryan Dempster had today.  After getting knocked out early in his last start, Dempster pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings and struck out seven and gave up one hit and two walks.  Michael Wuertz came in and finished the inning, but did give up two hits.  Sean Gallagher, trade bait, made a mess of the seventh inning, giving up three walks and recording only one out.  Then, instead of pitching Carmen "Piggy" Pignatiello, Lou or Larry brings in Les Walrond. Walrond got out of the jam without giving up any runs, but we should be looking at Carmen. 

Offensively, the Cubs looked bad again.  Derek Lee hit a homer enth and Henry Blanco added an RBI double in the seventh, but those were the only two runs the Cubs scored.  Theriot went 2-4, Soriano went 0-4, Lee went 1-4 (with the HR), Ramirez went 2-3, Fukudome went 0-3 with a walk, DeRosa went 0-4, Blanco went 2-3, and Pie went 0-4.  This is bad, guys.  Pinella is even starting to sound worried;

"Offensively, it's been hard scoring runs down here," Piniella said. "Usually in Arizona, you score a lot of runs, and this spring here there's been a scarcity of runs." "I've sounded the warning bell before.  Sooner or later, we have to start swinging the bats."

Even with the Cubs in their offensive funk, they had a 2-0 lead going into the 8th. Then Kevin Hart, who looked like a lock for the bullpen, comes in and stinks it up.  He gave up two hits and two walks, walking in a run, before he was pulled.  With one out and the bases loaded, Marmol walked Archie Gilbert to force in another run to tie the game. Corey Brown then hit a tiebreaking RBI single, scoring another two runs and giving the A's a 4-2 lead.  Then another Marmol walk in the ninth leads to another run, wtih the A"s winning 5-2.  Anyone still want Marmol as your closer?  Marmol has pitched 8.2 innings, given up seven hits and has six walks.  In the first game of the split double header, the Cubs had an astounding nine walks.  Nine walks, you are just asking to lose games. 

As far as the night game, Jon Lieber has given up one run and Ronnie Cedeno has hit a two run homer to give the Cubs a 4-1 lead.  Let's hope the bullpen doesn't blow this one!

Go Cubs!