“Cubs in a funk over slump” |
| Posted: 03 Jul 2010 01:46 PM PDT
No BP not the answer, either, for the team's dormant bats
The whiteboard in the Cubs clubhouse had four words written on it: ''No hit. No cage.''  Lou: 'Won't win too many with two hits' CUBS IN BRIEF: Fontenot gets his turn in keystone rotation Cubs recap Boxscore: Reds 12, Cubs 0 Inside the Cubs: News, notes and updates TODAY'S GAME Johnny Cueto
CUBS VS. CUETO Randy Wells REDS VS. WELLS That wasn't the description of Friday's 12-0 failing at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds. It was something manager Lou Piniella talked about before the afternoon disaster -- the second shutout in the last three games for the home team. The Cubs produced a meager two hits. With all else failing him in this exasperating exercise of offensive futility, Piniella was thinking about trying less instead of more. So no batting practice today --and no hitting in the batting cage. ''I'm from the school that sometimes less is better,'' he said. ''At times you can overwork. You hit enough in batting practice before a game. Sometimes you relax your mind [by backing off] as opposed to keep plugging away. ''It's like the guy having trouble with his golf game. He goes to the driving range and he's hitting away and hitting away, and suddenly at the end of the day he's hitting balls all over the place. ''Especially when the weather starts getting warmer -- if you don't have timing and mechanics down by then, I like the idea of sometimes cutting back as opposed to pounding and pounding away. ''It's the same with pitching. [Pitching coach Larry Rothschild] has had some guys who insist on throwing in the bullpen [constantly] and it doesn't do any good. I like the idea of backing off. Everyone wants to help as much as possible, but sometimes backing off can be a much better approach.'' Lest his thoughts be viewed as contrary to new hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, Piniella made clear he wasn't talking at all about his coaches' approaches or the work they have done. ''Rudy's had a lot of success -- and all the coaches I have here are excellent coaches. They're pros and they care, and they're available and they want what's best for the player. ''But sometimes it's best to back off and let ability take over.'' Pregame batting practice is fine, Piniella said. But Piniella was talking about what the players themselves have come to admit of late -- they may well have fallen into the trap of trying to do too much in each at-bat -- the proverbial trying to hit a four-run home run in one swing. ''You want to get the job done so badly,'' Ryan Theriot said this week after another one-run loss. ''It's definitely frustrating. Everyone wants to be the guy who pops the seal and gets things going. It's not for lack of effort. It's a hard thing to overcome. It might be that we are putting too much pressure on [ourselves]. ''It's not going to be like this all year.'' But as the first half nears a close and the Cubs keep adding on to their runless total, the nagging fear is that it could -- or at least turn too late to matter. ''What's hard for me to believe is that we can go as long as we have struggling to put runs on the board on a consistent basis,'' Piniella said. ''All we can do is put a lineup on the board and hope for the best.'' Like the lack of hits, most are also at a loss for words. ''It's the same story every day,'' Derrek Lee said. ''I have no words for it, no answers.'' ''The bottom line is we're just not hitting, and there's not much else to say,'' Koyie Hill said. ''It does put pressure on every aspect of the game. I know that feeling of having to play close to perfect can make a team feel tight. ''As much as hitting can be contagious for a team, it's true the other way around. It's baffling right now.'' And as much as they say they must keep their heads up -- ''You've got to press through the tough times,'' Lee said -- there are long faces left when the uniforms come off. ''Everything gets magnified when you're not winning, and especially when you're not scoring runs,'' said Mike Fontenot, whose error in the seventh contributed to eight of the nine runs being unearned. ''You're trying to do so much because you want to win so bad. We keep saying it, but all we can do it keep playing hard and keep working.'' Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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