Dealing with another loss
Manager Lou Piniella says it's not the best timing, but he and the Cubs have excused third baseman Aramis Ramirez for the first three games of this series against the Giants to tend to a family matter back home in the Dominican Republic. With that, Lou will put Mark DeRosa at third base for the games Ramirez is out. Matt Murton starts in left field tonight. Expect to see Daryle Ward out there later in the series.
Lineup
Fukudome, RF
Theriot, SS
Lee, 1B
Soto, C
DeRosa, 3B
Edmonds, CF
Murton, LF
Cedeno, 2B
Lilly, P
Lou is over last night's ejection, but he did say home-plate umpire Rob Drake "ambushed" him after he tried to talk with first-base ump Chad Fairchild about a checked swing from the Sox' Joe Crede. Lou added another shot at Drake, saying that Crede swung and Drake didn't even need to ask for help. Good stuff. We'll see if MLB has a sense of humor. One thing is certain: The umpires have reverted back to their old, arrogant ways.
Daryle Ward in left ? Please, dont, cant they just close left field like we used to do when we were kids ? I'd rather see Cedeno at 3rd and leave DeRosa in left. If Lou thought Patterson was bad, wait til he gets a load of this guy in left.
I was as pis... "upset", as Lou was last night. I'm glad he came out and gave it to them. Chad Fairchild blew more than one call last night. Unbelievable.
Drake had no business taking off his mask and making a show of throwing out Piniella. You can't say anything to these guys anymore. I fear we're reverting back to the bad old days with the umpires, who seem to be growing arrogant again.
We're quickly getting to the point where a lot of what umpires do can be replaced cheaply and efficiently by technology. It's too early in the morning to argue over the merits and detractions of this, but seriously, if you knew that there was something like Questec out there that could do your job instead of you, wouldn't you, I don't know, try to avoid rocking the boat a little bit?
I'd really hate to see Umpires taken out of the equation, fully understanding they can be just awful at times like the other night.
Case in point was Lou's "tirade" on Mark Wegner last year....you'd hate to take that out of the equation because while I'm not totally crediting the Cubs turnaround to that incident, they DID take off after that.