augie46

I think that the Texas Rangers showed the NL how to handle Cordero. Just make him throw a lot of pitches. Lots of blame to go around in this one besides Cordero's problems. Braun's error. Lots of runners left on base early in the game. Villanueva's troubles allowed the batting order to recycle one more time. We have had trouble scoring runs but I am much more concerned about our pitching as we head down the stretch.

I have been critical of Claudio throughout the season. In his last couple of starts he has been a stopper. I am giving him a symbolic pat on the back.

I think that our offensive problems are a result of our players trying to pull the ball too much. We don't seem to be going the other way as much as we did early in the year, especially when hitting breaking balls.

The season is over. We have no chance. The Cubs are too good for us.

Can we take Dunn or Griffey with us when we leave town? What is this sacrifice bunt thing that Jim Powell speaks of?

I think that Ned has forgotten about the bunt.

If a good team can still win without using its closer for a night, why couldn't it have been last night?

The Reds must be relieved to have played a game without facing Bill Hall.

What if we had used Coco last night? Let's say that we use Coco in the 12th and the Reds don't score. We would have had the bottom of the order up in the 13th. What if we didn't score there, do we use Coco for another inning? OK, so Balfour pitches the 14th inning, we still lose, and Coco is not available for tonight. We could have lost two games last night instead of just one. Managers don't know the results ahead of time. A good argument may be made for using Parra instead of Balfour in that situation, but not much of an argument can be made for having Coco pitch that inning. If he is to be used in a tie game then he should have pitched the 9th.

If we use Coco, shouldn't we have used him in the before the 12th? Then he still would not have been available in this inning. I don't fault Ned tonight. I will fault him if he starts Johnny Estrada tomorrow or Wednesday. Johnny hasn't been hustling. Plus, he has been terrible defensively. There seems to be a lot more wild pitches when he is behind the plate then when Damian is behind the plate. Grant Balfour is making Greg Aquino look pretty good these days.

Al Pacino

It looked to me as if Damian was setting up off of the plate a lot. All I know is this is bad.

This is the second game in a row where the opposition committed 3 errors against the Cubs. But what comes around goes around.

I went to Oshkosh at the same time. One of my former roommates eventually rented a room from Tellmann.

If Weeks' wrist is healthy, then he is just bad and should be sent to the minors. I don't think that he is healthy. I know that he is committing way too soon on his swing. He looks like Rob Deer, except that the way he is hitting he makes Deer look like a contact hitter. When Rickie says his wrist is fine I think what he really means is that he can tolerate the pain. I think that the Brewers made a mistake by not sending him out on a rehad stint. They are paying for it now. With the decline in production of Estrada and Hardy, that makes it even harder to keep a guy like Weeks in the line-up.