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5/26 Cubs lineup & homecoming
Blake Lalli gets the start Saturday night for the Cubs against his former favorite team, the Pirates as the Cubs try to snap a 10-game losing streak. Lalli grew up in nearby Gibsonia, Pa., and went to games at Three Rivers Stadium and PNC Park as a kid. He was a teammate of Pirates second baseman Neal Walker at Pine-Richland High School. Walker was a catcher and Lalli was a pitcher and shortstop. He’d play short on days he wasn’t pitching. Walker would catch him.
In 2004, Walker was drafted out of high school in the first round but Lalli wasn’t and couldn’t get a college baseball scholarship. He played for Gardner-Webb in North Carolina, and was not drafted until his junior year.
When he was called up May 18, Walker sent Lalli a text to congratulate him.
“That meant a lot,” Lalli said. “It means a lot from everyone — a lot of people congratulated me. But Neil, we played together in high school, and he was always a great guy. He’s had so much success up here. It meant a lot.”
Paul Maholm gets the start against his former team, the Pirates. He has the most wins at PNC Park of any pitcher.
“He’s a polished pro,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “At the end of the day, we just felt we needed to go in a different direction. But I’m glad he’s in a good place; we’ll do everything we can to get him to a bad place. It’ll be kinda neat for someone who was a Pirate for such a long period to come back on the other side and compete against a lot of his old teammates.”
One thing Hurdle has to do is get an autographed ball from Maholm for his daughter, who is a big fan.
Here’s Saturday’s lineup:
DeJesus RF
Castro SS
Mather CF
LaHair 1B
Soriano LF
Stewart 3B
Barney 2B
Lalli C
Maholm P
– Carrie Muskat
5/26 Draft picks
With the First-Year Player Draft coming up June 4, here’s a look at recent Cubs picks:
2007: 3B Josh Vitters
Vitters was batting .263 in 44 games with Triple-A Iowa. He has 11 doubles, four homers, 21 RBIs and one stolen base.
2008: RHP Andrew Cashner
Traded to the Padres in January for first baseman Anthony Rizzo.
2009: OF Brett Jackson
Jackson was batting .232 in 43 games at Triple-A Iowa with four homers, 10 doubles, five triples, 15 RBIs and seven stolen bases. He has a .325 on-base percentage, and has struck out 61 times in 168 at-bats. He has 22 walks. Jackson has played all three outfield positions, but primarily center field. He’s been hitting sixth in five games and was 6-for-18 (.333) compared to hitting .202 in the leadoff spot.
2010: RHP Hayden Simpson
The right-hander, whose career was slowed after a bout with mononucleosis, is at Class A Daytona and has been pitching in relief in the last six games after going 0-3 with a 7.94 ERA (15 earned runs in 17 innings) in his first four starts. So far, he’s given up 10 earned runs on 18 hits and 12 walks over 15 1/3 innings in six relief appearances.
2011: SS Javier Baez
Baez has been playing in Mesa at extended Spring Training with several other Draft picks from last year. He has yet to be assigned to a Minor League team.
– Carrie Muskat
5/26 Extra bases
Paul Maholm is the perfect pitcher to have on the mound Saturday night for the Cubs as they try to end a 10-game losing streak. Maholm faces his former team, the Pirates, for the first time, and returns to the ballpark where he is the all-time winningest pitcher with 35 W’s. He has more strikeouts (361) and games started (96) at PNC park than any other pitcher. In the last 75 years, only five lefty pitchers have more wins with the Pirates than Maholm (53 total wins): John Candelaria (124 wins), Bob Veale (116), Jim Rooker (82), Jerry Reuss (61) and John Smiley (60).
* The Cubs’ 10-game skid is the 15th double-digit losing streak in club history, and the first since they opened the 1997 season 0-14. The Cubs have posted 10 losing streaks of 11 or more games in team history.
* Why are they losing? They are hitless in their last 25 at-bats with runners in scoring position, going 0-for-4 Tuesday, 0-for-9 on Wednesday, and 0-for-12 Friday. Including a 4-for-15 effort Monday in Houston, the Cubs are batting .100 (4-for-40) with RISP in the last four games and hitting .327 in all other situations during those four contests.
* They’ve lost all four games despite out-hitting the opponent in every game. The last time they lost four straight games when collecting more hits than their opponent was June 20-23, 1991, against the Giants. They’ve only scored in four of the last 56 innings, and the last two runs have come via solo homers.
– Carrie Muskat
5/26 Minor League report
Luis Valbuena hit a solo homer in the ninth to lift the Iowa Cubs to a 2-1 victory Friday night over Memphis. Rodrigo Lopez started the game but was pulled after throwing one pitch because of tightness in his groin, which he felt warming up. Jay Jackson stepped in, and threw five innings of one-run, three-hit relief. He walked two and struck out five. Scott Maine earned the win in relief.
Eric Jokisch gave up two runs on one hit and one walk over five innings in Tennessee’s 4-3 win over Mobile. Jae-Hoon Ha and Luis Flores each hit home runs. Jim Adduci had two hits, an RBI and a stolen base.
Austin Kirk gave up seven hits over eight scoreless innings but did not get a decision in Daytona’s 2-1 loss to Clearwater. Micah Gibbs, Rubi Silva and Dustin Harrington each had two hits.
Starling Peralta gave up one run on five hits over four innings in Peoria’s 3-1 win over Clinton. Zeke DeVoss had two hits, including a double, and Luis Liria converted his first save, pitching three innings in relief.
– Carrie Muskat
5/25 Sveum: “I’m lost for words”
The losing streak reached 10 games Friday after the Cubs dropped a 1-0 decision to the Pirates. It wasn’t that Pittsburgh won. Chicago beat itself, going 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position. This is the first time the Cubs have lost 10 in a row since they dropped the first 14 games of the 1997 season. It’s the franchise’s 15th skid of 10 games or more.
“I think that’s the problem is that we’re trying too hard,” Alfonso Soriano said. “We want to have the big hit and try to make the team better and try to win. We have to be more relaxed and let it happen. This game is not too easy but sometimes we make it harder. I think we’re making it harder because we’re trying too hard. We have to play one at-bat every pitch, and not try to do too much. I think now everybody is trying to do too much because we’re struggling offensively.”
How bad is it? They’ve scored in only four of the last 56 innings. The Cubs now have scored two runs off a starting pitcher in the last six games, a total of 37 2/3 innings.
“It’s unbelievable,” Dale Sveum said. “To out-hit the opponent every night and not score, and we can’t seem to get that hit with men in scoring position. … I’m a little lost for words now. It’s kind of the same thing. Guys are battling and having decent at-bats, good at-bats, and just not finalizing it, really. There’s a lot of good at-bats. They’re just not getting it done.”
– Carrie Muskat
5/25 Losing stinks
The Cubs’ entered Friday’s game riding a nine-game losing streak.
“I’ve been through a 12-game losing streak once in my career and it grinds on you and it gets frustrating, there’s no question about it,” Dale Sveum said. “It’s human nature. Most of the time it turns around. It turned arond last time I was part of it. We were 20 games over .500 after that.”
That was in 1987 with the Brewers, who actually began that season 13-0, but lost 12 straight May 3-19. They finished 91-71.
“You always say even great teams have a six- to 10-game losing streak in the course of a year,” Sveum said. “Obviously, we’ve got to get a lot of things fixed — we’ve got to score runs and be better in the bullpen and things like that. You have to win one before you do anything.”
– Carrie Muskat
5/25 Castro out of No. 3 spot
Dale Sveum didn’t pick a new lineup out of a hat but he may try that next to kick-start the Cubs offense. On Friday, Starlin Castro was moved from the No. 3 spot to No. 2 for the first time this year and Joe Mather, who was hitting .278, made his 12th start, and and first batting third.
“It’s time,” Sveum said Friday. “The combination of not scoring throughout the whole season and Mather’s been as good as anybody swinging the bat so I’m going to give him a little opportunity to see what he can do. Like I told Castro, I said, ‘It’s not a demotion, it’s more shaking the team up.’ He was great about it — he was like, ‘Hey, I just want to win, I don’t care where I hit in the lineup.’ He took it well and completely understood.”
Mather started in center — he’s also played third and left field. The Cubs would like to see a little more pop out of the No. 3 spot in the lineup. Castro has hit two home runs; only the Phillies have had fewer homers from that spot in the lineup (one).
“There’s nothing [Castro] has done to be put down in the two-spot,” Sveum said. “It’s more change to get everything going. You never know. Sometimes you pick a lineup out of a hat and you win. I wasn’t going to go that far. You can do that in the American League, not the National League.”
Was he close to randomly picking a lineup?
“Not too far,” Sveum said, smiling. “You never know.”
– Carrie Muskat
5/25 Wood to sign copies of new book
Kerry Wood will sign copies of a new book, “All You Can Be: Learning and Growing Through Sports,” on May 29 at Barnes & Noble Old Orchard, Skokie, IL, 7:30-9 p.m. CT; May 30 at The Cubs Store, Wrigley Field, 45 minutes after the game; and June 29 at Costco, 2746 N. Clybourn Ave., Chicago, 7-8:30 p.m.
This is Wood’s first children’s book in which he shares valuable principles he learned growing up that helped him have success in the Major Leagues. Fourth graders from Chicago Public Schools provided drawings exemplifying their own goals for the future and the illustrations are included in the book. A portion of all proceeds will help support children’s programs run by the Wood Family Foundation.
– Carrie Muskat
5/25 Lineup & extra bases – UPDATED
Starlin Castro is batting second Friday for the Cubs as they open a three-game series in Pittsburgh against the Pirates. Castro hit .335 in the No. 2 spot last year. Ryan Dempster is on the mound, looking for his first win since last August. Also, Ian Stewart was a late scratch and rookie Adrian Cardenas is starting at third base. Stewart’s left wrist is sore — it’s the same discomfort he’s battled this season. Here’s the lineup:
DeJesus RF
Castro SS
Mather CF
LaHair 1b
Soriano LF
Cardenas 3B
Barney 2B
Hill C
Dempster P
* The Cubs have lost nine in a row, and have not lost 10 straight since dropping the first 14 games of the 1997 season.
* The Cubs were 12-9 in 21 games from April 21-May 14, but are 2-11 in the last 13 games. They’ve scored 75 runs in the 15 wins, an average of five runs per win, and 80 runs in the 29 losses, for an average of 2.8 runs per game. How bad is it? The Cubs have scored in four of their last 47 innings, and they are batting .231 in the last eight games.
* Pitching matchups:
Friday: Ryan Dempster vs. A.J. Burnett
Saturday: Paul Maholm vs. Kevin Correia
Sunday: Matt Garza vs. Erik Bedard
– Carrie Muskat
5/25 Minor League report
Chris Rusin gave up four runs, three earned, on seven hits over four innings in Iowa’s 7-2 loss Thursday to Tacoma. Luis Valbuena and Brett Jackson each had two hits. Jackson now is batting .235.
Dallas Beeler gave up three runs on five hits and five walks over six innings in Tennessee’s 3-2 loss to Mobile. Jim Adduci hit his fourth home run and Junior Lake had two hits.
Greg Rohan and Micah Gibbs each homered but it wasn’t enough as Daytona lost, 5-2, to St. Lucie. Ryan Searle gave up three runs on six hits over 3 2/3 innings. Rohan’s homer was his eighth and one of three hits.
Kyler Burke gave up one unearned run on two hits over six innings for his first win of the season in Peoria’s 4-3 win over Clinton. Oliver Zapata had three hits and two RBIs.
– Carrie Muskat
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