Dale Sveum is new, and as such should be given the benefit of the doubt. But either he’s a really good liar, or he doesn’t know enough about Carlos Marmol to be worried about his performance so far this spring.
“Breaking balls like his aren’t going to do a whole lot here in Arizona,” Sveum said. “You’re always going to struggle with it, and you’re going to throw it harder and make it spin more and it’s actually a counter effect.
“But I think all along we want him to get his fastball command, [that] is the biggest thing. We know the breaking ball will come back when we head back north. Just mainly getting the fastball, getting work and throwing strikes with the fastball.”
Hasn’t that always been the problem? He can’t throw strikes with the fastball, and when that happens, people know to lay off the slider? Don’t worry, Chris Bosio is on the case, too.
”I know he was overused, and he agrees he was overused last season,” Bosio said. “To his credit, he has worked as hard as any pitcher in camp to regain his skills so far this spring. We are planning to have him use some different grip adjustments to get him back to form.”
Marmol lost some velocity on his fastball last season and became less effective when hitters started to lay off of his slider.
”He is one of those guys that you want to do great ,he never misses a drill.,” Bosio said.
“Marmol is a guy that has the heart of a lion he has great passion, so we are going to work with him and get it right.”
Should we really trust a guy who uses phrases like “heart of a lion”?
”Boz showed me how to shorten my stride and that helped the ball come out of my hand with more leverage,” Kerry Wood said. “It was a simple adjustment that means a lot for me.”
If he’s good enough for Kerry Wood, he should be good enough for the rest of us, too.
If you’ve been wondering what the bench will look like in 2012, it might include Joe Mather, who’s impressed Dale Sveum this spring.
Overall, Mather is 7-for-14 this spring with four extra-base hits and 5 RBIs.
“It’s been pretty impressive to do what he’s done with the bat, especially against right-handed pitching,” manager Dale Sveum said. “It’s not like he’s going out there against left-handed pitching and doing it. It’s just a huge asset to a manager. He can probably play every infield position, maybe get by for a day up the middle.”
(snip)
“It’s a perfect fit when you have two corner guys that are left-handed hitters, and the right-fielder,” Sveum said. “(Alfonso) Soriano is going to get his days off. So he’s proven that the athletic ability, the base-running and obviously the bat fits our team to a T right now.”
Were I a betting man, I’d say Mather has the inside track after reading that. Let’s just hope he’s not horrible.
I love how this staff continues to throw Mike Quade et al under the bus at every turn. It’s highly entertaining.
I think there have been a few jabs thrown at Mike Quade, but to me it has been Mark Riggins that has been thrown under a bus. Overall, as I’ve said before, the coaches assembled under Mike Quade was a mostly a minor league staff…plane and simple. Quade himself, Riggins, Dernier, and DeJesus really had no business being major league coaches. Pat Listach was the best guy on that staff, and not surprisingly, he’s still around. In fact, Listach would likely have been a better manager than Quade.
DeJesus had absolutely no business coaching third last year. He screwed up signals to batters and baserunners, and was worse at judging when to sending players home from third than Wendell Kim and Chuck Cottier.
Riggins…I don’t think anything else needs to be said about that guy.
And Bobby Dernier…he’s an ’84 Cub and I love the guy, but the Cubs were miserable on the basepads last year. He’s been a minor league baserunning instructor for years, but the Cubs continued to bring up players who seemed clueless on the basepads…sorry, but the evidence is pretty clear he was rather ineffective.
That was pretty sloppily written…my apologies.
It’s Quade by implication, though.
Well, you could say it is Jim Hendry by implication.
I agree.
What the heck is a basepad? If you have a cold in your nose (code in your node), then basepaths would be badepads.
But for what it’s worth, I use to refer to the areas over the end lines and side lines on a basketball court as being “out of bounce” instead of out of bounds.
ugh.
So I see that Julie got Bloomberg Front Office to try to beat me in fantasy baseball this year.
I guess that Theo Epstein testimonial on the front page of their site must of sold her on getting it.
They gave it to everyone who attended their event in Chicago a few weeks ago. Heh.
Yeah, good luck with that. Make sure you draft Victor Martinez early so the software doesn’t keep suggesting you add him once the season starts.
LOL
And Grady Sizemore, too…
I’m still waiting for their Madison event. (sigh)
The mold count in Chicago today is the highest in 5 years. I guess this explains why I can’t breathe.
So there is a down side to having record warm temperatures in March.
It either that or the fact that you are sealed inside a refrigerator.
They have a mold count?
I’d hate to have to be the person that goes around and counts all the mold.
The only way this total lack of comments is okay is if you are all outside!
I’m at work .
I can’t keep carrying this site.
You should have your own blog.
I don’t think Tony Campana is going to be on the roster on opening day.
I’m not sure Tom Ricketts will let him NOT be.
I read that a poor innocent garbage can took the brunt of Marmol’s frustration.Hopefully Marmol didn’t use his push-off foot in this ‘Z’-like action. Just what we need,a toe injury from some goofy momentary mental lapse. But they’re less expensive than coolers.
He should have used The Force to make sure that none of his pitching parts were damaged. You don’t need a soul to throw fastballs (cf. Roger Clemens)
There is a report out there that Bruce Springsteen is going to be playing two concerts at Wrigley in September.
I’m still waiting to hear about the Styx concerts at Wrigley. They should be announcing that any day now, right?
I heard they will be opening for the Stones.(nyuck,nyuck,nyuck)
That’s a big “booooooo” for multiple reasons.
You mean the Cubby Bear, right? They could maybe fill it up.
I think we can eliminate any thought of there being two Woods on this team. Travis Wood was brutal today.
That’s his second brutal outing in a row, is it not?
I wouldn’t know, I was stuck inside on trial all freaking afternoon. BOOO.
20.25 ERA not bad, followed by Coleman’s 1.2 inning 4 runs 2 walks no strikeout performance I would say not too shabby
Small sample size. Travis might be unhittable for a couple outings too. It’s too early to tell.
Considering how poorly he pitched last season, I’m not very optimistic. Of course I’m rarely optimistic about anything.