I know we’d hate for anyCubs players to talk to the media about how horrible this team is and how they expect the team to lose over 100 games. David DeJesus set the bar for unbridled optimism to a new high last night.
“We still have work to do but you’ve seen things like this happen,” DeJesus said of the 31-50 Cubs, who started the day 14 games behind the Reds and Pirates in the National League Central. “The second half of the schedule for the Reds might be tough. And who knows about ours? But we just have to worry about every game, preparing ourselves and being mentally strong. I think that will get us to where we need to be.”
Yes, David, in 2014, by some stroke of great luck. Dale Sveum has more realistic expectations.
“We’re a much more stable team than we were a month ago as far as the lineup is concerned,” Sveum said. “The back end of the bullpen has been pretty solid. It’s that bottom end where those guys have to throw strikes. You can’t keep yourself in a ballgame to come back. We have to be better with men in scoring position and we need to throw strikes. You can’t lead the league in those two categories and think you’re going to win baseball games.”
Thanks for sounding like a normal person again after your weird Home Run Derby revelation yesterday.
Bryan LaHair homered for just the second time since June 8 last night. Is he breaking the slump?
“The swing feels real good,” LaHair said. “It’s just putting a few hits together and getting that extra confidence over the hump and taking off from there. I’m working hard in the cage and working hard on my swing right now just to kind of get that feeling, that confidence back and everything falls from there.”
Doug Padilla found an interesting stat regarding LaHair’s home runs this season.
The home run broke a 1-1 tie, meaning that of his 14 home runs, LaHair has tied the game or given the Cubs the lead with 10 of them.
That’s a good one for all the people who were saying he shouldn’t be an All Star because of his RBI total. Ryan Dempster isn’t an All Star, but his 2.11 ERA is second best in the National League. He’s hoping to return from the disabled list on Sunday, the last day before the break.
“It’s easy to say ‘yes’ today when you feel great throwing a side,” he said. “We’ll see how it feels tomorrow.”
He’s been sidelined with a sore right lat, and says he feels as if he has his full range of motion and strength back. It seems a little rushed but Dale Sveum didn’t dismiss the idea.
“I know he’s serious [about it] and we’ll give it some thought,” Sveum said.
But wasn’t he supposed to throw a simulated game to face hitters before coming back?
“I’ve faced them before,” he deadpanned. “I’m hoping they haven’t changed too much in the last couple weeks.”
Well done, Demp.
I’m really going to miss having Depmster on the team. He seems to be one of the few guys in the clubhouse who has an intentional sense of humor. The rest of the team is funny because they’re trying to be serious (see DeJesus thinking this team could walk on water).
Um, is it just me or is anyone else picking up a broken calendar vibe from LOHO HQ? I have advanced training in esoteric ideas about space & time (finishing my masters in hippy dippy philosophy), so my services are at your disposal if you need my calibration services. Trained in Mayan, Julian, and Gregorian Calendars, although I have great references for Hebrew and Chinese systems of the measure of duration.
Oopsie! I’ll fix that.
Stay classy, San Diego:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuJHfkXEI-o
Done in only 10 seconds? I think they have pills to fix that problem.
My head hurts
Caught a little of the game last night, which was fun
they should have more games like that
I’m sick of this 100 degree heat. I think I’m going to move to some place cooler like Atlanta.
Do you want to hear my stupid, nerve racking, hair pulling 4th of July story?
No?
Too bad.
So my 3 year old daughter had been an absolute brat all day yesterday and I made the decision that she was not going to get to go see the fireworks last night. Of course that didn’t go over well for both my daughter and my wife (who also really wanted to watch the fireworks). We put our daughter to bed at about 8:15 and my wife just sat there moping. So I said, “Fine! Get her up and take her to the damn fireworks. I’ll stay home and watch Sebastian (our 1 year old son).”
She get’s up our daughter and they get into the car to go see our city’s fireworks display. As they leave, my daughter slams the door to the garage closed, which promptly wakes up the 1 year old who had been sleeping soundly for the past hour and a half.
Needless to say, he was pretty pissed the noise and then the fireworks started…as a result he wasn’t going back to bed any time soon. I rocked him in the rocking chair for the half hour that the fireworks were going on trying to get him to settle down and stop crying while all the loud booms continued to go off.
The fireworks ended around 10pm, and my son finally fell asleep shortly after. I put him back down in his bed and waited for my wife and daughter to get back home. We live only about 5 blocks from where they watched the fireworks, so I started to wonder where the heck they were.
At 10:30, I get a call from my wife, who was crying on the phone. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying and I’m sitting there scared to death that something happened to my daughter. Finally I got her to calm down enough that I could finally understand her and she explained that she had lost her wedding ring in the field where they were had watched the fireworks. A group of people, some fortunate enough to have metal detectors (??? seriously), were going around the field trying to find the ring. I can’t really go out there to help since we needed someone to stay home with our son. At 11pm, my wife came home, still crying (that ring means a lot to her), put our daughter to sleep and asked me if it was ok for her to go back out to the field with our metal detector to see if she could find it. I reluctantly said yes. So she went out there and looked for another hour. (And of course, as soon as she left, our son wakes up again after the door to the garage was closed again…so I spent that hour trying to get him to calm down again.)
When she got back home, she was still crying, even though I was kinda pissed (she loses stuff like this all the time), I told her it was alright and it really wasn’t a big deal. She calmed down enough that I was finally able to get to sleep at about 12:30 or so.
At 3am, my dog needed to go out so my wife got up and let her out (since she still really wasn’t sleeping anyways). As she waited for our dog to come in, she started to think that maybe she accidentally she had lost the ring while doing something around the house that day and only realized that she had lost it during fireworks.
Then she realized that she might have lost it when she was making hamburger patties for dinner that evening. (Usually I make the patties, but I had a blister on one of thumbs from working in the garden that day, and didn’t want to be mixing the meat with that wound.)
Neither of us found a ring in the burgers we ate during dinner, so she though maybe it was in the extra patty that had been made that was sitting in the fridge.
She took out the burger, broke it apart…no ring.
And then she remembered…
She took the ring off when she made the hamburger patties. She look off to the side in the kitchen and next to the phone, among some pens, pencils and scissors, was her wedding ring.
All that chaos and the ring was sitting right there in the kitchen the whole time.
Ugh.
You should write a book
On top of it all…we found out earlier in the day that our plan to cook out on the grill was “illegal” as there was a ban on all outdoor burning (except for the city sponsored fireworks) including grilling. That meant that I had to make our burgers on the griddle on the stove…inside. And boil our corn on the stove…inside.
Overall, I can honestly say, it was a shitty Fourth.
Isn’t that what that was?
tl;dnr
another day where I could have used a day game to listen to
Just had an epic wipe out on the jet ski. People on this lake will be talking about it for years. I’m going to take some advil and go to bed gor a while. If anyone wants to do the game thread, knock yourself out.
“knock yourself out”
Y’mean like YOU almost did??? Ha-HAAAAA!!!
Wish I could do the thread today but Im on my way to Florida for the Daytona Sprint Cup race. I will still be watching the game though…
Attention ladies and gentlemen, there’s a cast change to announce. Tonight, the role of Matt Garza will be played by Casey Coleman.
Thank you
Good thing I fell asleep before I bothered to a make a game thread for this mess.
It’s official-LOHO is cursed. Besides what has happened to everyone else, my sis and I spent last night up since the paramedics took my mom to the ER around 11 last night. She had bad back pain , could not breathe, and they had problems taking her blood pressure. She spent the next 5 hours there due to understaffing, and people acting psycho due to the fireworks,etc. Finally went to bed at 4 a.m.,up at 10 a.m., and went to work. I finally get to look at the site and everyone also had a bad time. I blame Theriot…
Cubs who? God damn the Nationals have been an incredibly fun team this year. Yet another come from behind walk off win.
I was going to offer to write headlines, but it seems as if the holiday has put everyone asleep