Cubs-Astros: The Streak Hits Five at the Not-So-Friendly Confines

The Friendly Confines has been anything but for the Cubs on this current homestand.

The team is struggling, and in the meantime, they are setting season highs in all the wrong categories, including consecutive losses (five), and they were swept at home for the first time all season.

The Cubs were shut out 4-0 in the series finale vs. the Astros. Ryan Dempster took the loss, and Randy Wolf mystified the North Siders, pitching a complete-game shutout. Ty Wiggington also had a two-run HR in the victory.

Looking at only the numbers, one would see that the Cubs had runners on base in every inning between the second and seventh, but were unable to cash in on any of those opportunities.

Dempster did not have his best stuff, but he only allowed three runs over seven innings, which is generally enough to get the job done for a team of the Cubs’ caliber. The Cubs also had 10 flyball outs, a number far too high, considering that the wind was howling in from center the entire game.

From here, the numbers fail to tell the whole story.

Being at the game, there was one thing that I haven’t felt this season at Wrigley: a feeling of unease and agitation. It was palpable from the moment the Astros took the lead. I haven’t felt that sense of defeatism from a crowd at Wrigley since the 2006 season.

Perhaps spoiled by the frequent victories that have come at home, the Cubs players are also feeling some of that same frustration. There is evidence to support this conclusion in three separate incidents during tonight’s game.

Ronny Cedeno walked to lead off the fourth inning. Dempster then bunted him over. With one out, Alfonso Soriano lined a base hit into left field. Ty Wiggington fielded the ball as Cedeno was rounding third, and Mike Quade gave him the green light. Big mistake.

The ball beat Ronny to the plate, and he was called out. Whether Quintero tagged him or not, Quade was being too aggressive here, and he didn’t get the call to bail him out.

So, since Quade was clearly feeling the pressure to score any runs against Wolf, the Cubs had a runner on first with two outs instead of at first and third with one out. To rub salt in the wound, Ryan Theriot hit a deep flyball to center on the next play that would have easily scored Cedeno.

In the sixth inning, Derrek Lee reached base to start a potential rally. Then, instead of working the count (the prescribed method to get a good starter out of the game), the Cubs got aggressive. Aramis Ramirez and Geovany Soto both flew out very early in the count, and Mark DeRosa followed suit after a brief battle.

The apparent desire of the Cubs' hitters to let fly with a long ball on a night when the wind was blowing in demonstrates the team’s current psyche: They’re pressing, and a team that’s pressing generally will try to get all the runs back at once, rather than getting base hits and “keeping the merry-go-round going,” to quote Bob Brenly.

In the top of the ninth, with runners at the corners, Jeff Samardzija showed poise beyond his rookie status and got Michael Bourn to take off from first base and get into a rundown. During the play, Ryan Theriot had chased the runner nearly back to first base, but instead of tossing the ball to Lee to finish him off, he inexplicably tried to make a running, cross-body throw to get David Newhan, who was about halfway to the plate.

Even though he was only halfway down the line, he scored easily because the throw was well off the mark. This foolish decision cost the Cubs another run and showcased another problem: The Cubs aren’t thinking correctly on the defensive side of the ball.

A team that’s making simple mistakes on defense is one who’s not thinking coherently.

There are only two solutions to the funk that the Cubs find themselves in. One is to merely hope that getting away from the Cirque du Wrigleyville helps the team focus more on just winning games rather than meeting the expectations of the fans (and possibly themselves).

The other is for Lou to say anything he needs to in order to convey one message: Losing streaks happen, even to good teams. As long as you continue to play hard and don’t exacerbate the problems with avoidable mistakes, everything will get back on track.

For our sake, let’s hope that these problems work themselves out soon.