Oh those slumping Cubs. You try wringing out a win, and still you get slump.
I suppose I could take partial credit for the losing streak, since a previous post used the word that begins with "S" and rhymes with tune. Dusty has been getting his share of grief, and the players have been accused of just going through the motions.

Can one play in a game be the focal point of a whole season? Logically you would think that the other 161 games would have some bearing, yet I wonder about a particular incident at the start of the losing streak on August 3rd against the Phillies. The night before the Cubs eked out a win from a strong Zambrano effort and a timely ARam hit in the 8th inning. Dempster tried to lose it but came up short.

On August 3rd the Cubs battled the Phillies to a tie going into the ninth. With Dempster gassed it was up to old Remmy, who once again put men on base (this game was probably the final straw to his DFA). Wuertz came in to try and get the Cubs out of a jam (man on 3rd one out). He was successful in getting a called third strike, but the ball squirted away from Barrett. We all know how the rest played out, resulting in a win for the Phillies and a funk for the Cubs from which they still have not been able to escape.

I was willing to cut Barrett some slack. Nobody is perfect, and he did mention that he thought the batter had foul-tipped the ball (not called by the umpire). There has been some grumblings about his defensive skills as well as his pitch-calling. I'd still take him over Blanco, and he has been one of the few regulars to hit well during the slump. Below are team stats for the 7 games following the Aug. 3 debacle:

Runs/game: 2.7 (4.4 #8)
Team avg.: .237 (.270 #2)
BB/game: 1.7 (2.6 #16)
OBP: .275 (.325 #12)
K/game: 3.9 (5.7 #11)
SB/game: .14 (.41 #11)

(The numbers in parantheses are for the season, with the Cubs ranking amongst the 16 NL teams.)
For stolen bases, there was only one recorded during the 7 games, and that was by Greg Maddux. It was too depressing to report on the opposing team stolen bases. The Cubs recorded one inning where they scored more than 3 runs, and that was in the ninth inning of a game where they were already down by nine (NEED 2 grand slams game). The Cubs' pitchers gave up an inning of 4 or more runs in five of the seven games, and in the two games that they did not the Cubs scored 0 and 1 run.

As has been lamented over this season from many sources, the Cubs lack of runners on the base paths has resulted in low runs scored. For a team to be second in batting average yet 12th in OBP is pathetic. There needs to be a shake-up where guys get on base and are moved along by any means possible.

IF I WAS MANAGER ... I would try something extraordinary with the following line-up:

1. Lawton RF
2. Murton LF
3. Nomar SS
4. Barrett C
5. CPat CF
6. Neifi 1B
7. Macias 3B
8. Cedeno 2B
9. Pitcher

Hopefully you can get Zambrano pitching against a junk-ball thrower who has a slow delivery to the plate. You would have everyone try to get bunt singles or walks, with an occasional taking the bat back and slapping it past a drawn-in infield. Running up the pitch counts, hit-and-runs and base stealing would be strongly used. Whoever gets the most total bases (excluding home runs) would get the daily award of a gold toothpick.

Yeah, this is kind of "out there", but something has to be done to snap the funk. I realize Cedeno is back in Iowa. Believe it or not, I thought about this line-up while pushing a lawn mower in 95 degree heat.