The Sore Shoulder, Part I

Well, I did predict that a nefarious sore shoulder would come up sometime soon, I just thought it would be a month down the road. Dave Veres is onto the 15 day DL today with it, and the early word is that Alan Benes will be the guy coming up from Iowa to take his place. Rod Beck probably should be the guy to get the call, but since whoever comes up will be pitching more long relief (with Joe Bo's emergence as the closer), Benes seems more apt to fill that role than Beck. Don't be surprised if Beck then asks for his release.

Apologies to Estes since perhaps I too hastily requested his release. He still has to prove it over a couple of starts, but he was obviously very very good yesterday. Did anybody else see the focus on Estes last night on Baseball Tonight? I didn't get to see the game yesterday, but was pleased to be able to watch some of the clips. Estes had excellent command of his change, something he hasn't had most of the year and was able to pitch in and out with the FB/change combo to the righties, while mixing in the curve to the lefties. His two seamer also had good movement, resulting in lots of ground ball outs. I'm not ready to jump onto the bandwagon just yet, but this is certainly an excellent step. Bobby V made the point last night that as the #4 or #5 guy, his stuff is better than 90% of the other #4 or #5 guys in the NL and so the matchups should favor him. I'm not sure how much I buy into that, but you can't argue with the results from yesterday.

Bellhorn had another good day yesterday and hopefully is shaking off the rust.

Choi hit another home run, but it seems to me that if he keeps hitting the ball to left center, he's just going to get pounded inside more and more. What he needs to do is open up on a fastball and just kill it to right field and hope that Baseball Tonight shows the clip, then maybe he'll get some more fastballs away from him that he can drive to left center.

More soon.

Korey Part II

I really wanted Corey Patterson to succeed.

After being down 5-1 to start the frame, the Cubs scored 2 in the bottom of the 6th last night and had second and third with nobody out with Patterson up. Bob Boone summoned lefty Kent Mercker from the pen, and I summoned the slightest hope that Corey could have a productive at bat against a lefty. Mercker fell behind 2-0, at which point (i'm not kidding) the guy ahead of me said "Corey is taking more pitches these days." Of course, I laughed hard at that one, given that the first pitch bounced and the second one almost hit him. Oh well.

2-0 went to 2-1 - a pitch I predicted he would swing it if it were close (he fouled it off). Then 2-1 and a side arm 2-2 pitch were stared at for a backwards K, and it was all downhill from here.

Coming up again in the 8th, Patterson fell behind 0-2, at which point I told my friend about our new game: counting the number of close pitches that Patterson takes with two strikes that end up being balls. I figure he might take one per game, but never more. Yesterday I was right. The 0-2 pitch from Riedling bounced about 5 feet from the plate. Then the 1-2 pitch was again looked at for strike three. I think I'm going to keep a running tally and I'll call it TSCPTBP, or Two-strike close pitches taken by Patterson... perhaps I should add a "that did not result in a backwards K." If you have a better moniker, feel free to let me know.

It was a frustrating loss since errors and defense cost us at least three runs, and we had tons of chances against the soft tossing Jimmy Andersen.

Still, I saw some good things. Among them:

Mark Bellhorn showing a more compact swing on his way to a few hits... Prior pitching without his best fastball and still pitching well enough to win - if Bellhorn gets a glove on the double in the second inning, and if Prior doesn't make the error in the 6th, it's a different ballgame... Eric Karros is the slowest man alive - it's almost painful watching him run the bases... Also, Karros deserved an assist on Prior's error for not being able to stay on the bag -- the throw really wasn't that bad... Exhibit #2, your honor, on why Juan Cruz should not close was his fine display of command last night... Baker brought Mike Remlinger in to face Adam Dunn in the ill fated 6th, which was a fine move except for the fact that he gave up a 2 run single -- Remlinger seems to be struggling with his breaking ball, and until he sharpens it a bit, we can probably expect some more outings like last night where he handles the righties just fine with inside fastballs and good changes away but can't put away the lefties... Hats off to Sergio Mitre - after skipping high A ball, he tossed 7 scoreless AA innings last night with 9 Ks - I always did like his sinker...

Corey or Korey?

I listened to a debate over the weekend about the progress of CF Corey Patterson. Sitting in the upper deck during Kerry Wood's 13 K gem on Saturday, a couple of guys in front of me were talking about Patterson and one of them specifically mentioned his batting average as it was posted on the scoreboard (.300 +). The other guy then responded that Patterson was a complete bust and should be doing his striking out at AAA, to which the first guy laughed incredulously and said "you're gonna send a .300 hitter down to the minors?"

Interesting debate, even if neither of them seemed to have a clue about Patterson's progress.

First, before yesterday, Patterson had 8 RBIs, 7 of which came on opening day. I'm too lazy to look it up, but his batting average since opening day has also been pretty abysmal. This pokes a few holes in the "he's hitting .300 with 2 HRs and 8 RBIs" argument. I don't think I need to get into this any further with the readers of this site.

Second, one might look at yesterday's boxscore and say that he's making progress. I'm here to tell you that this is another example of how numbers in boxscores don't always tell you the whole story. Like I said, I was at the game Saturday (and will be tonight) and I watched every pitch of yesterday's game. On Saturday, each time Patterson got two strikes, I told me dad who was sitting next to me that Patterson would swing at a pitch outside of the zone for strike three. Both times he did exactly that. Patterson would swing at a pitch on the moon if you threw it to him with two strikes. Sure he rocketed a double in one at bat, but he did it before the pitcher could get a couple of strikes on him. His judgment does not seem to have changed at all from the kid who walked only two times in the second half of last season. Then yesterday, I'd like to caution against reading too much into Corey's two walks. On paper they sure look nice don't they? But in reality, his walks weren't exactly tough walks. What does that mean? It means he didn't have to take any borderline pitches in order to get them. I can hear the natives now, saying I'm splitting hairs and blahblahblah. But the fact is that Kip Wells couldn't find the plate and each of the pitches that Corey took was nowhere close to the zone. When he doesn't have two strikes, he's actually pretty good at laying off those (sarcasm intended). But in neither walk was Patterson forced to actually make a decision on a pitch that was within six inches of the zone.

Third, after the game yesterday, Steve Stone talked about what a great move it was by Dusty Baker to show Patterson some confidence by sticking with him when Sauerbeck came into the game. #1 - We don't have any other center fielders who aren't left handed. #2 - Baker didn't do the same with Hee Seop Choi, so I'm not sure how much credit we should give him.

This piece could easily be mis-interpreted as one that is much too harsh on the kid, but it shouldn't be. I really like Patterson. I am excited by his tools and his speed and his power potential. The Cubs haven't had a prospect like him in a long, long time. Still, that excitement isn't going to make me turn a blind eye to the things I still see on the field, and I'm still seeing little strike zone judgement and NONE when he has two strikes. Next time Corey gets to 0-2 or 1-2, see how many close pitches he takes for balls. If he's able to start doing that, then maybe I'll come around and say he's making progress. Let's face it - anybody could stand up there and go draw a walk when the pitcher throws 4 balls in the dirt or above your head as Wells did yesterday. It's the tough walks (a friend thinks I should start a new stat - I think more people should just understand baseball better so a stat like that isn't needed) where the pitches are six inches off the plate that show true recognition of the zone and, in Patterson's case, true maturity.