Stat of the day: the Cubs are batting .272/.480/.327 since the All-Star Break. Of course, a .480 team slugging percentage for a full season would be most impressive by historical standards. For the starting lineup, the numbers are even more impressive:
PLAYER | G | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | R | RBI | BB | AVG | SLG | OBP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michael Barrett | 53 | 177 | 56 | 16 | 3 | 6 | 25 | 21 | 12 | .316 | .542 | .361 |
Derrek Lee | 65 | 252 | 68 | 19 | 0 | 10 | 44 | 47 | 25 | .270 | .536 | .338 |
Mark Grudzielanek | 55 | 174 | 54 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 21 | 16 | 8 | .310 | .448 | .342 |
Nomar Garciaparra | 33 | 127 | 38 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 21 | 16 | 9 | .299 | .472 | .353 |
Aramis Ramirez | 56 | 201 | 62 | 9 | 0 | 19 | 35 | 44 | 18 | .308 | .637 | .363 |
Sammy Sosa | 61 | 238 | 56 | 7 | 0 | 17 | 33 | 37 | 18 | .235 | .479 | .295 |
Corey Patterson | 63 | 264 | 74 | 17 | 0 | 13 | 43 | 33 | 16 | .280 | .492 | .329 |
Moises Alou | 63 | 230 | 70 | 17 | 2 | 18 | 48 | 49 | 34 | .304 | .630 | .388 |
Starting 8 | 65 | 1663 | 478 | 96 | 6 | 100 | 270 | 263 | 140 | .287 | .533 | .343 |
Once again, the Cubs have a team that’s long on home runs and short on patience. But when you’ve got this kind of wall-to-wall power, it hardly matters. While Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and Matt Clement have struggled, it’s been the less-vaunted Cubbie offense – even adjusting for the fact that it’s been a good hitters’ year at Wrigley – that’s carried the load as the Cubs stay in the wild-card hunt down the stretch run. And while Nomar and Sammy may be the biggest names here, they haven’t been particularly close to the biggest bats, as Moises Alou, Aramis Ramirez and the long-awaited breakout of Michael Barrett have made a much bigger impact.
But they’re still the cubs (not worthy of a capitalization). They’l find a way to fail. But then I’m an Astros fan, and we tend to find a way to fail as well.
I know Dusty cannot do it, because he’s “a player’s manager”, but the Cubs should not re-sign Sosa. Spend his $100,000 per game somewhere else, like signing a center fielder that can actually play 162 games without going 0 for a whole damn week in the September stretch run.
The relief pitching will take the hit for today’s loss, but Sosa’s LOB percentage is higher than his slugging.
Yeah, that was a brutal loss today.