The picture pretty much keys in on where our day went wrong. A few opening mistakes from Roy and things went south. I hope this isn't an indication that he'll be suffering from the WBC-itis that plagued starters after the 2006 WBC. It looked like he was missing his spots pretty consistently, at least early on. Leaving pitches up in the zone against hitters like Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez usually spells disaster- and it did tonight.
The WPA graph below pretty much hammers that home for us.
[HLP's analysis]
What can we take away from tonight's game?
- This lineup does not look long for this season. Pudge Rodriguez looked uncomfortable at the plate, and Michael Bourn looked light years ahead of where he was at this time last year. I would think that Hunter Pence will be moved up to the second spot, and Pudge will dropped down, possibly to the eight hole.
- Miguel Tejada was all over the ball tonight, collecting three of our eight hits. He didn't seem to have any problems getting his bat around on any of the Cubs' pitcher's offerings
- Cecil Cooper was calling (or at least appeared to be calling) too many hit and runs for my liking. When a team struggles to get on base, it's best to keep those kind of calls in your hip pocket. Aggressiveness on the basepaths can be a positive, but discretion is the better part of valor
- Zero XBH tonight for the good guys
- Hunter Pence is still a work in progress. With runners on first and second in the seventh and nobody out, Pence lunged at the first pitch and hit a ground ball to Ryan Theriot- a tailor made double play ball.
