[Lee and Soriano last night, wondering if October ’08 will ever end.]
In the Cubs’ ridiculous finale for April, the bullpen gave up a 6-run 10th-inning to the Marlins. Up 2-1 in the 8th, Carlos Marmol took over from Sean Marshall’s best day in a long time and allowed the tying run to score. The 6-run disaster that the bullpen (Heilman …) then offered is possibly the ugliest evening Wrigley will produce until July’s Rascal Flatts show. Last year, Piniella stuck with Kerry Wood for the entire season, backing him as the one and only closer “ a loyalty Wood returned by taking a month off for a blister. That’s why Piniella’s bullpen is so surprising now: the unpredictablity and mediocrity. Did the Wood situation change his mind on that? Piniella’s bullpen direction is one of the bigget about-faces in his managing, and it’s time he went Rob Dibble on somebody soon. Carrie Muskat recounts the 8-2 loss here:
Once again, The Milton Bradley Revenge Squad Tribune Sports Dept, and their mission to Set Milton Off, is worth mentioning. While the rest of the Trib staff is running storylines past Trib readers to guage how to write their news, the sports dept remains dead certain that everyone in Chicago sees Milton Bradley like they do. Sullivan, the dean of Milton Bradley haters, has apparently begun an investigative series on MB’s rocky debut. Yesterday he covered Bradley’s slump pre-game, then followed it today in an interview with Soriano. If Bradley won’t talk to you, I guess you work around it. Of course, Bradley’s homering Wednesday put a slight crimp in Sully’s crusade. Here, Sullivan at least puts into context the early slumps of Alou, Lee, and Soriano with the Cubs. Could it be Bradley’s blowing off Chicago media hurts them more than him? Or that even Trib staffers realize that if you make a guy the only story in Wrigley, it helps if you’re on speaking terms?
Possibly Sully reads CSTB, or maybe even the dense quality of Phil Rogers’ and Steve Rosenbloom‘s recent work has hit home. Rogers replies to Sullivan’s context for Bradley with a different sense of history, provided him by a California Cub fan (the loudest sort, apparently). The fan, Mike Norton, gets column space and praise from Rogers for comparing the hated ’64 Brock for Broglio trade to losing Mark DeRosa “for” Bradley (it wasn’t a straight up trade for Bradley). Writes Norton: “I’m also totally puzzled as to why the Cubs ‘traded’ Mark DeRosa. It looks as if the real ‘trade’ was DeRosa for Bradley — not as bad as Brock for Broglio, but in the same class.”
Nowhere near the inequity of the Brock deal “ and certainly not if I can go by DeRosa’s post-season appearances for Chicago and those of Brock’s HOF career in St. Louis. Then, of course, there’s Rosenbloom, at the bottom of the Trib monkey barrel. He trashed Bradley on day one of his signing and now whines that Bradley isn’t boosting his blog with interviews and quotes. Normally, a week after the fact isn’t worth recounting, but it is when Rosenbloom has been proven wrong in Bradley’s return, and Bradley proven right in his estimation of Chicago’s lamest sports writing dept, the dead broke and busted Tribune. Writes Rosenbloom:
Milton Bradley has been bad, injured and cranky, so of course he™s blaming the media for the way he™s being covered.
Yo, Milton, how do we Febreze bad and injured? Should we write that you™re Albert Pujols, except with a .043 average?
Oh, wait, I forgot ejected and suspended. Yo, Milton, how do we Febreze bad, injured, ejected and suspended?
It didn™t take long with this guy, did it?
Bradley came with a resume that showed he has trouble working and
playing well with others. When he™s healthy enough to play and work,
that is.
Bradley™s resume includes a standing reservation on the disabled
list and very public clashes with a general manager, manager, teammate,
announcer, umpire and fan — just about all of baseball™s major food
groups — but this was going to be different. Wasn™t that what he and
the Cubs told us?
OK, so let™s see if I have this right: isn™t healthy, got booed, wouldn™t talk — and it™s someone else™s fault.
The only thing different is he™s compounding the agony by not hitting.