
Life-size sausages run for their lives from hungry Brewers fans.
I’ve really grown to hate the Brewers. I hate the team. I hate the fans. I hate the stadium. I hate the sausage race. I hate all Ryan Braun’s clothes and his stupid eyelashes. I hate Corey Hart. I REALLY hate Nyjer Morgan. I hate it when Dale Sveum says nice things about any of them.
I’m pretty sure I hate the Brewers more than the Card, at this point. And this started even before the whole Ryan Braun circus, but that certainly didn’t help. Lo, I am hopeful that the Cubs will be able to whomp all over the Northern Beer Team tonight, in a manner that will leave them curled up in a ball on homeplate, whining for their mothers.
How will the Cubs do this? Why, with advanced stats, of course!
Today, the Cubs have amped up their prep work. Listach spends so much time in the video room that the staff there taped his baseball card to a monitor to reserve his seat. The Cubs also employ two full-time advance scouts who rotate series and meet with the players in person to deliver their reports.
Manager Dale Sveum used video when he was with the Red Sox and Brewers, and he would review a player’s last 100 ground balls to pick up tendencies. If a batter hits the ball to the left side of the infield 90 percent of the time, that’s how they’ll defend against him, most likely employing a defensive shift.
The Cubs’ strategy worked perfectly on Wednesday. The Braves had runners at first and third with two out in the sixth, and Chipper Jones lined the ball to center, nearly clipping pitcher Paul Maholm’s head. But the Cubs anticipated that and had moved Darwin Barney behind second base. Barney snared it, and the Cubs won, 1-0.
It was a different story on Monday. Atlanta’s Tyler Pastornicky hit two balls in the hole, something he hadn’t done in the video Listach watched. On Tuesday, Listach asked Sveum if he wanted to move shortstop Starlin Castro against Pastornicky, but the Cubs manager stuck to what they’d seen on video. Pastornicky went 0-for-3.
» Continue reading “Cubs Friday Headlines: Sausagefest, Anyone?”