Chicago Cubs Drop Opener Versus Chicago White Sox

In the rematch series between the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox, the Sox drew first blood.

The game had a three o'clock first pitch, but nobody told the Cubs to show up.  The Cubs looked flat from the start and are starting a disturbing trend of not getting the clutch hits that they did earlier in the year. 

I hate to pick on Cub manager Lou Piniella once things start to bounce against the Cubs, but I have a couple of problems with Friday's game. 

First of all, Ryan Dempster was supposed to get an extra day of rest and not pitch until Saturday.  I'm not sure why they felt the need to go with Dempster on Friday and give Sean Gallagher another day off, but they did. 

Dempster faced the Sox on Friday at Wrigley and went eight innings only allowing one run.  While he only threw 103 pitches it's important to note that last year he was a closer, and has already thrown more than 50 innings more than he threw all of last year! 

Instead of skipping other starters to get to Dempster, the Cubs should be giving him an extra day off here and there to keep him strong in August and September. 

Gallagher on the other hand hasn't pitched since last Thursday and will be going on eight days rest, and hopefully not too rusty. 

Dempster had his worst outing of the year Friday without question, surrendering eight runs and is still winless on the road.

Another Piniella idea that needs to go away is the idea of having second basemen play the outfield.  Mark DeRosa, Eric Patterson, Ronny Cedeno, and Alfonso Soriano were all infielders and have all spent time in the outfield. 

Soriano has obviously made the move full time to left field, but is far from being a dependable left fielder. 

Friday's game was the worst of Eric Patterson's career as he misplayed several balls, had an error, and the White Sox were running on his weak arm all game. 

It's not very often you see a player tag up on a routine fly ball hit to left in the first inning.  However, that's exactly what happened, and Patterson wasn't expecting it and it wasn't even a close play at second. 

Carlos Quentin tested his arm on a base hit that shouldn't have even warranted sending the base runner from third, but again the throw was offline and Quentin scored rather easily. 

On Patterson's lone error of the game, he completely missed a rolling base hit through the outfield and nonchalantly went after it allowing AJ Pierzynski to make it to third.

It's hard to get down on Patterson, since he's playing out of position.  I'm not sure what the allure is of having people playing out of position.  The Cubs have more than enough offense to go around and need to have somebody capable of playing the outfield. 

I don't know why the Cubs won't give Matt Murton a shot, but he's on the major league roster, and I look for him to get a shot soon. 

Piniella said the Eric Patterson experiment in left field has come to an end though. It's too bad for Patterson, he has speed, is left handed, and has hit a little when he has been up, he just is behind three or four other players at second.