• Scottie Pippen HANDLES Patrick Ewing.  Boom! [Pippen Ain't Easy]
• LeBron was in Chicago promoting his new shoes, and the Chicago-styled version looks really cool.  Not like cool in the way I would ever wear them, but cool to look at from a distance. [Docksquad]
• Lou has a theory about Marmol’s wildness: He’s overthrowing.  I have a theory: stop making theories and keep him on the bench until he gets it together. [Tribune]
• So apparently the whole Patrick Kane kicked the shit out of a cabbie story is overblown.  Considering it didn’t really affect my opinion of Kane or the Hawks in the first place, I’m having trouble caring. [Deadspin]
• How come when a player makes a couple million over his market value people go nuts, but when Trib execs make 70 million over their value to run a company into the ground, no one seems to have a problem with that? [WV23]
• Will someone please tell me what is going on with Tommie Harris’s knee? [Tribune]
• Quentin Richardson may be traded a 4th time this offseason.  Do you think he actually even looks into moving to these places, or jsut assumes he’ll only be there for 11 days or so? [TonyBlogs]
• I hadn’t heard this until now, but according to some sources, James Johnson’s work ethic is not stellar.  Some even think Gibson will outshine him in their roookie seasons because of the disparity in effort.  Yikes. [ChicagoNow]
• Is D-Wade contemplating a move to Chicago?  He did buy a house here, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot since he is from these parts. [Bulls Blog]
• The story of how Urlacher almost got killed at the bare hands of Bas Rutten back in 2006.  I don’t know if I buy the story the way Rutten tells it, but still a funny little anecdote. [Chicago's MMA]
• Remember when Steve Stone was so critical of the Cubs and Dusty Baker ran him out of town?  Well Brenly is starting to run his mouth a bit, and just like Stone the fans appreciate the honesty.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t upset Lou too much though, we wouldn’t want to see another good color guy run out of town.  [Bleacher Nation]

Everyone knows the Cubs offense has been mostly dormant this season.  Although bullpen problems have been a big issue, the Cubs need to be able to score runs to even put the bullpen in a position to blow the game.  What has seemingly ailed the Cubs much of the season is something Bob Brenly likes to call “timely hitting”.  As most intelligent baseball fans know, “timely hitting” isn’t really anything in terms of a player’s value to his team personally.  It only means that if a player who hits .300 gets lucky and the people around him are on base coincidentally when he gets those hits 30% of the time, then he is called a good “timely hitter”.  The Friendly Blogfines took a look at the stats on the Cubs “timely hitting” and they will initially appall you:

- In Wednesday game against Detroit the Cubs were just 1 for 15 (.067) with runners in scoring position (and that one hit still didn’t produce a run), but were 10 for 20 (.500) when there were no runners in scoring position.

- On the current road trip the Cubs are a total of 1 for 29 (.034) with runners in scoring position but are 27 for 73 (.370) with no runners in scoring position.

- The Cubs are currently hitting .223 as a team with runners in scoring position, dead last in all of baseball.

- The Current .223 mark is worse than any team has hit with runners in scoring position during a season in the past 5 years.

- The Cubs have 3 of the worst hitters with RISP of all regulars in the big leagues, Geovany Soto at .204, Mike Fontenot at .205 and Alfonso Soriano at .157

- Only one Cub (Kosuke Fukudome) has hit higher than .264 with runners in scoring position. And only 2 qualifying players are higher than .242 (Fukudome and Theriot).

- In the month of June the Cubs are hitting just .205 with runners in scoring position.

- The Cubs are hitting .207 so far this year on the road with runners in scoring position.

- This season the Cubs are hitting .259 with no outs, .237 with 1 out and .217 with 2 outs.

- Cubs are hitting .147 on the season with runners on 2nd and 3rd.

- The Cubs have hit 47 solo Home Runs, only 24 with runners on base and only 11 with RISP.

Yeah those numbers look bad, but I’m here to tell you they are a good thing.  I mean of course they aren’t a good thing looking back, but looking forward, if the Cubs can keep up their good all-around hitting, statistically the low average with runners in scoring position will even out.  It has been mostly proven by sabremetricians that batting average with runners in scoring position is an illusory stat, and if you give a ballplayer enough at-bats in those situations, they will eventually hit their normal average.  For instance, if the Cubs are hitting .247 overall as a team this year (which they are), given the course of the whole season, statistics have shown with studies of every other team in baseball history (with a few notable exceptions, of course), that the Cubs will likely hit .247 with runners in scoring position over the course of the season.

So fear not, Cubs fans.  If the Cubbies continue to hit well like they have been doing the last few weeks, eventually those hits will come with runners in scoring position.  Just to ensure everyone is making the connection, yes this is all a part of my belief that clutch hitting does not exist.  Although if it did exist, which it doesn’t, Aramis Ramirez coming back will definitely give the Cubbies a boost in that department.  The department of clutch-hitting that doesn’t exist I mean.

Ryan Theriot has been just obliterating the ball since May 1.  He has 3 home runs in the last 4 games, tying his career-high for home runs in a season in a 4 day stretch.  I’m not sure if this will keep up, it’s not like The Riot was one of those guys that seemed to have the power but just couldn’t put it together.  Maybe I’m wrong though.  After all the shit we give Theriot around here for his TOOTBLANs, it’s time he got a little love.  Take a look at this game log from the last 3 days:

It’s not like he had a bad April either, going .317/.374/.378.  While that slugging percentage is a bit low, his job is to get on base and he is doing fantastic in that department.  On top of that, his TOOTBLANs are way down, seeing as that he has stolen 6 bases in only 8 attempts.

Now the speculation that Theriot has done steroids this offseason is obviously out there.  It is unfortunate that we live in a world where someone cannot just play well for a stretch without coming under suspicion, but that is just the way the game is now.

Bob Brenly, however, would like to posit a different theory.  As I was watching the Cubs broadcast last night, Brenly related a ridiculous tale speculating on Theriot’s recent surge.  It went something like this:

I remember way back when Sandberg was with the Cubs.  Jim Frey told Ryno “you should try to hit for more power, you’re not just a singles hitter.”  And Ryno said ok.  And do you know what happened?  He started hitting all those home runs.  This power surge by Theriot reminds me of that.  Someone must have told Ryan to start hitting the ball harder, and it looks like he listened.

Now that’s not an exact transcript of Brenly’s comments, but its close.  I choose to believe Bob’s folksy wisdom.  Better that then having to deal with the dark cloud of steroids everytime anyone does anything good on the diamond.

h/t for the picture: Bleacher Nation via Cubs Brickyard