The Cubbies have been playing mostly like shit so far this season, despite many preseason experts and fans picking them to win the National League.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the reasons for their crappiness aren’t really that complex.  In case they somehow escaped you, here are those reasons in no particular order.

The Bullpen Is Terrible: The Cubs bullpen so far this season has been atrocious.  While this should have been somewhat foreseeable after Hendry inexplicably let Woody walk and replaced him with (gulp) Kevin Gregg, the dropoff from last year to this year should not have been so bad.  While Marmol’s slider has still been mostly unhittable, the rest of the ‘pen has been god awful.  With no legitimate lefty, Cotts has filled the role and completely shit the bed.  There is no way that guy has gotten more than 5 outs this season.  Heilman has been okay at best, while Gregg has basically been the nightmare we thought he would be.  You know what would have been nice?  If Samardzija had actually been decent.  Without expecting much from Guzman and Patton (and they haven’t shown much, though not terrible), and Luis Vizcaino essentially kicked off the team by Lou, it doesn’t look like this problem is going to fix itself anytime soon.

Injuries: I’m just going to give you a list of Cubs who have been injured, and you tell me if missing any of these guys might be crucial to the team’s success:

Milton Bradley
Derrek Lee
Geovanny Soto
Carlos Zambrano
Chad Fox
Aramis Ramirez

Although Hoffpauir has stepped in nicely for Lee the last week or so, any team that sustains this magnitude of injuries to many of its stars is going to suffer on the field.  And suffer we have.

Lou Piniella’s Retarded Baserunning Philosophy: We always hear about how the Cubs are trying to be “more aggressive on the basepaths” from Sweet Lou.  Here’s the thing, if the aggressive baserunners are getting thrown out, then it is hurting the team.  Period.  I know a lot of you out there feel that stealing bases and being more aggressive is a good thing even if they aren’t successful all the time.  Here’s what you need to know about that instinct: it’s wrong.  The Cubs are 19/30 on stolen base attempts.  That means that if they had not attempted those 30 stolen bases, the team would actually have scored MORE runs over the course of the last 6 weeks than they did succeeding 19/30 times.  God I hate TOOTBLANs.

Slumpitis: When does a slump become cause for greater concern?  After 6 weeks of the season, that question is becoming paramount.  Derrek Lee, Milton Bradley, and Geovanny Soto (the heart of our lineup sans Ramirez) are hitting .209, .179, and .169 respectively.  All three of those guys showed up on our earlier injury list, so that could be a part of the problem.  Regardless no team that has their 3, 5 and 6 hitters combining for an average below the Mendoza line is going to be able to win any division, even one as crappy as the NL Central.

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Tags: Baserunning, Bullpen, Cubs Suck, Injuries, Lou Piniella, Slumps