Same OLD Song and Dance

Cubs 4 Reds 7

FUNDAMENTAL BASEBALL. According to Merriam-Webster .com the definition of fundamental is of central importance or belonging to one's innate or ingrained characteristics. I am going to email this to Dusty's boys.

The Cubs had plenty of chances tonight to put away the Reds and did not. They had a chance to win the game in the 8th with Lee on 3rd and Nomar on 1st with no outs. Burnie popped up and Barrett got hit in the head to load the bases. Barrett is O.K. and walked off the field on his own power. Murton then ground to 3rd, force out at home and Neifi popped up to end the inning (on the 1st pitch). Winning run left on 3rd. The Cubs missed the cut-off man, gave up the go ahead run on a balk (for the 2nd time this year against the Reds) and tried to force a play at second in the 11th inning that cost them the game.

The lack of fundamentals have cost the Cubs all year and tonight cost them a chance at getting to .500. I never thought I would be so excited about the Cubs getting to .500 as I have been in the past month. The last time the Cubs were at .500 was August 4th. At this point the playoffs are gone and a winning season is all there is to root for. If they could pull that out, it would be the 1st time since 1970, 1971 and 1972 the Cubs had 3 winning seasons in a row.

As good as the bullpen pitched last night, they were just as bad tonight. Jerome Williams pitched his best game of the year at Wrigley and should have gotten the win. Jerome went 7 strong innings and only allowed 1 run on 8 hits. Then here comes the bullpen. Novoa gave up 2 and Ohman balked in the go ahead run. Dempster and Wuertz held the Reds in check. Jermaine Van Buren walked the leadoff hitter in the 11th and Dusty brought in Rich Hill. Hill loaded the bases and gave up a 3 run double to Sean Casey...game over.

The young Cubs all played like rookies tonight. I have been singing the praises of Matt Murton....well tonight Matt Murton had one of his worst games as a Cub. I think this guy will be something special, just not tonight. Murton ended up 0-5 and left 8 runners on base, including 2 times with the bases loaded. Hopefully Murton will learn from this and he will become a better ball player. A baseball player has to put his team above himself...see Derrek Lee.

No more Reds until 2006....

There is a joke that goes 'an optimist sees the glass half full, a pessimist see the glass half empty and a Cubs' fan waits for it to spill'...that sums up tonight.

Thursday - The St. Louis Cardinals

Mark Prior(11-5/3.64) vs. Jeff Suppan(14-10/3.69)

Thursday starts a 4 game series against the Cardinals. This is the Cubs last 4 games against the Cardinals and hopefully the Cubs can play them as tough as they have all year. A win this weekend will give the Cardinals the Central Division Title for 2005. I do not want to see that at Wrigley...but we all know it is going to happen sometime this weekend. The Cubs are back to 2 games under .500 and anything less than winning the series will put a big dent in the chance of a winning season. The Cubs are a better team than the one that played the Reds...or are they?

Play hard, play smart, be patient...and just have FUNdamentals.