Chicago Cubs Ticket Blog

The Cubs have been struggling and we have been chronicling it this whole time. Here we are, though, looking back on a decent series against the unfortunate Pittsburgh Pirates. We are looking to some of our minor leaguers from Iowa to keep the team in the hunt. Last night, Randy Wells threw seven outstanding innings, holding Pittsburgh to just one run. Sam Fuld was able to hit a couple of times and got a Pirate runner at the plate. It was a well done game. But the part that has got the headlines is that Lou Piniella argued a call and threw his hat. The umpire, in turn, threw him. Oh well, nicely done guys and Piniella does seem to have some fire left. Wonderful!

The Cubs had a rough weekend against the Chicago White Sox. Friday was the only win that the team was able to get against their crosstown rivals. This wouldn’t be nearly that kind of problem if they were winning ballgames otherwise. The crosstown games are always a little weird. But the Cubs dropped most of the preceding week as well. They need to get themselves back into gear. It’s almost midseason and this otherwise very talented team seems to be stuck just under .500. There are discussions now about the worth of keeping people like Bradley and Zambrano with their high price tags on the team. They throw temper tantrums but not outs everyday. And to top it all off, the high output former Cub Mark DeRosa (who was eliminated to make room for Bradley) was traded from Cleveland to NL Central archrivals St Louis Cardinals. There will be some big excitement when the Cubs play the Cardinals a few more times over the course of the season. They will be fantastic games, even better than the usual!

How quickly things change. The Cubs have had a rough week. After last week, it looked like they might be on the upswing with a couple of great come-from-behind wins and other kinds of fun. This week, the team seems to have dropped off the edge of the earth. They were swept by the Detroit Tigers and in bad fashion (they also lost to the Braves in a one-game make up). Kevin Gregg is losing some important innings. Soriano isn’t hitting the way he needs to. Bradley doesn’t seem to know what a bat is for. Ramirez is coming back next week, then he’ll be gone until August. They just don’t seem to know if they’re coming and going and Piniella doesn’t seem to care as much as we would have thought. He’s been quiet in the dugout and in the postgame pressers. It’s sad to see such a team falter. They will be playing the Sox again this weekend and hopefully they will be able to push themselves right up into good momentum all over again!

With the Cubs surging, it was clear that they would have to settle back a little bit. They swept the Indians over the weekend and then headed to Atlanta to make up a game from earlier this season. Atlanta’s Javier Vasquez was able to hold the Cubs down, despite Chicago’s total of 10 hits over the course of the game. Atlanta won 2-0, although the last call was a rather close one. The final Cubs hitter was called out on strikes, with a pitch that happened to catch the outside corner of the plate. The Cubs move on to play the Detroit Tigers in Detroit and then the White Sox at US Cellular Field again. It will be a week of fun baseball for the Cubs and you can look forward to a lot of unusual plays. Get ready for a great week.

The Chicago Cubs have found a way to revive themselves in a big way. They have been having a lot of trouble hitting and getting runs over the last several weeks. While they have some important wins in the last couple of weeks, yesterday’s win against the White Sox was just the kind of bump they needed. They were down 5-1 in the 8th inning. Then they got a three run homer from Derek Lee and another home run from Soto. The 9th inning gave them a small-ball run to win it. Finally, a come-from-behind win for the first time in awhile, where they really came back from almost nowhere and it was a lot of fun! Get yourself ready for a new team that is even more ready to go than they have been before.

As we all know, the Cubs have underperformed this season so far, landing at only 30-30 this deep in the season. They haven’t hit their stride, especially on offense. The relief pitching has been having a lot of trouble shutting the other team down as they always hope to. Starting tonight, they will be having the Chicago White Sox in their home to play the first of this year’s subway series games. The Sox have similarly been having trouble and sit at 4 games under .500. But all that doesn’t matter in the Chi-vs-Chi series, because anything can happen when these two teams get together. Bar fights and arguments in the city about which team is best are normal. Everything else is up for grabs, especially the game.

Carlos Zambrano started a great new phase, after a rather dramatic last few weeks, with a win! Or, that’s the way it looked in the 8th inning, after 8 quality innings pitched by Z. He has had some trouble with control in certain outings. He allowed just one run on 3 hits in his innings. But then he got taken out for the bullpen to put in the final punches. But instead Geoff Blum and other Houston Astros last night. Angel Guzman was working hard, but he gave up a small-ball run in the bottom of the 9th to lose the game 2-1. Zambrano, however, kept his composure though, because he had done everything that he could do. He didn’t give it up, he didn’t make any mistakes. He had a good night. The Cubs, on the other hand, have allowed their silly bullpen to lose it!

The Cubs are starting to pick things up with some wins on the road and it has been interesting to see this team getting better in the last few weeks. They were losing on the road but now they are back to winning on the road. The only trick at the moment is that they keep requiring extra innings to win. The next few games are important for the Cubs to prove to themselves and everyone else that they are finally making headway against the plagues they’ve had this year. It’s certainly going to be a lot of fun moving forward and Marmol seems to be finally back. After a week of silliness involving a Gatorade machine and such, they seem to be working it out now.

When the Chicago Cubs took the field yesterday, it was immediately following a big disappointment in the 12th inning the night before. That night, the Cubs were winning 5-0 in the 8th inning when they melted down and allowed Atlanta to tie it, sending it to extra innings where the Braves finally took it. Wells, the pitcher in for Zambrano, held the Braves hitless until deep in the 7th inning. The next night, though, the relievers who’d dropped Tuesday’s game came up big and kept the opponents down until the offense could take the game back! And the Cubs have finally won a game on the road for the first time since May 10. They are sitting at one game over .500 right now. We’re going to hope that they will be able to get some momentum out of this game.

Even though the Dodgers won a game decisively on Sunday and closed out their most successful May in over 40 years, the Cubs won a good game using the talented arm of Ryan Dempster on Saturday. This resulted in a split of the series which helps to lower the fears of the Cubs. Last week, the Cubs were upset about several things and took out many of their frustrations on the beverage dispenser, which has been removed. This team switches between the look of implosion and the look of upcoming triumph everytime. It’s a little bit tough to guess what their next attitude will be and whether they’ll be able to get the job done this time. It’s hard for this team that has dropped so far below expectations to keep the positive attitude at just one game over .500 and 4th place in the division. Keep an eye on them, because once they’re healthy, they might just start battling again.