Chicago’s Randy Wells held the Diamonbacks to one run over the course of 6 innings today, and we’ll have to presume news of his replacement by reliever Sean Marshall was discussed in a frank manner far in advance of the 7th inning at Wrigley Field. That’s because the communication skills of new Cubs skipper Mike Quade are so far superior to those of the retired Lou Piniella, who somehow managed to win nearly 2000 big league baseball games while possessing all the charm & tact of Mark E. Smith. At least that’s the line being peddled by retired blowhard/MLB Network analyst Kevin Millar, who used an appearance on WMVP’s “Waddle & Silvy Show” to unload on Sweet Lou, who amazingly, couldn’t manage to find a place for Millar’s veteran leadership on last season’s Cubs roster. From The Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan :
“I didn’t get a chance to play with Lou, but I mean, there definitely was something missing, OK,” Millar said. “You have to have more organization and know who is going in the game that day. Listen, I played 12 years in the big leagues, and I sat there for nine innings in a spring training game and didn’t know if I was playing or not playing. There’s just common courtesy, to use an example personally.
“You know, ‘hey listen, you’re going in the fifth inning after Derek Lee,’ OK, perfect. So you know to go get loose in the fourth or whatever it is. It’s little things like that. The lineups were a big issue. I’ll tell you right now, (Cubs manager) Mike Quade is a baseball guy. The first thing speaking with (Ryan) Dempster, he loves this guy. It’s a different feel.
“Nothing against Lou Piniella, he managed a lot of years and you get to the point where you don’t think about those things, but it was a little frustrating from the player’s side period. That there were no lineups, Lou didn’t know who was playing and who was going in and it gets old. So then what happens is, you get guys in bad moods and then what happens is you’re kind of like, ‘whatever.’ That’s the way the Cubs kind of played to an extent.”