Record – 1-4 (1 – 1 vs. Texas, 0-3 vs. Milwaukee Packers of Baseball)
Any optimism after an encouraging previous week was washed away by rain, errors and unearned runs. Despite the return of 2012 Gold Glove winner Darwin Barney the defense actually got worse:
Tuesday – one error (Shawn Camp), no unearned runs. Circus of Fielding rating – 1 (out of 5, 5 being the worst).
Wednesday – Rain/Cold. Circus of Fielding rating – 1.
Thursday – 0 errors/unearned runs, only win of the week. Circus of Fielding rating – 0.
Friday – one error (Anthony Rizzo), one unearned run. Circus of Fielding rating – 2.
Saturday – three errors (Alfonso Soriano, Starlin Castro & Edwin Jackson), four un-earned runs. Circus of Fielding ratings – 5. Doubts cast by fans if this team even attended spring training.
Sunday – two errors (Wellington Castillo & Scott Feldman), three unearned runs. Circus of Fielding rating – 5. The Masterpiece Performance as Feldman boots inning ending come-backer and then surrenders 3-run game winning homer to PED Braun.
Total runs allowed during the week – 20. Unearned runs – 7 (35% of runs allowed).
Jim DeShaises on-air boner of the week – During Sunday’s game mixed up his Star Wars references when he attributed Yoda’s backwards talking speech pattern to Jabba the Hut. Fortunately Len Kasper made the quick on-air correction so they could get right back to talking about the porous defense.
MVP – Starlin Castro & Anthony Rizzo (tie) – Looking like these will be the only two players to win weekly MVP honors for the year. Rizzo crushed three homers while Castro extended his hitting streak to 13. Look out, Joe DiMaggio!
LVP – Scott Feldman – Did finally last over five innings Sunday but “wins” LVP honors for the aforementioned error/three-run Braun bomb. Bernie Brewer was so confident Braun was going deep he began his slide before Feldman released the gopher ball.
Ask the Magic 8-Ball:
Will the Cubs set the all-time record for unearned runs allowed in a season?
Magic 8-Ball says – Yesss! Then it said some curse words.
