The Cubs Are Angry and Other Bullets – April 11, 2011

Every day is a new opportunity to turn it all around… or some other bs platitude.

  • Kerry Wood is as angry at himself for walking Yuniesky Betancourt in the 8th inning yesterday as you are. The McGehee homer is what stands out in the box score, but Wood was up 0-2 on Betancourt before throwing four straight balls. If he gets down to business and takes care of Betancourt, the McGehee bat is very different (it leads off the 9th), or doesn’t happen at all.
  • Speaking of angry, Marlon Byrd had a bit of a disagreement yesterday with reporters who asked about his failed stolen base attempt in the 9th inning. It sounds like Byrd missed a sign because Mike Quade wasn’t calling for a steal. After folks asked Byrd a few times about the steal – and whether he received a sign to go – he abruptly cut off questions (in a very un-Byrd-like way): “Done. Beat it. I respect you guys all the time, and we lose a close game like that and that’s the question you ask? Forget it. Beat it.” Apparently John Grabow had to step in to keep things from getting worse. Yikes.
  • In news that isn’t news, Jeff Samardzija has control problems. It’s already widely understood that, short of his guaranteed contract and lack of options, he wouldn’t have made this team out of Spring Training. Odds are that puts him on a very short leash, and it sounds like Quade might be getting a little frustrated. “That’s another situation where he’s going to be as good as his ability to hit the glove, period,” Quade said. “His stuff is plenty good enough to be successful here. You’ve got to locate it, and locate it well and locate consistently down. Until he does that, he’s going to struggle here. He knows that. Whether it’s a mechanical thing, whether it’s mental, whether it’s a combination of the two, he’s just got to fall in love with the catcher’s glove and find it day in and day out.”
  • Quade believes in the unwritten rules of baseball, like not sending in a pinch runner to steal two bases in the 8th inning of a 5-0 game. I agree that there are unwritten rules you should follow, but that one is too close of a call for my taste. If the Cubs were up 5-0 and rested on it, would you be happy about it?
  • Kosuke Fukudome is day-to-day (but probably ok) after leaving yesterday’s game with a slightly strained hamstring. This does not appear to be a display of God’s Wrath.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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