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Sergio Mitre has a solid outing... Roger Clemens too

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

I watched the game this evening in an ex post manner. After the game was over, I went back and watched the top of the fourth, the bottom of the eighth and the bottom of the ninth.

What I watched was pretty good... but I'm betting that if I had the time to watch the other 15 frames I would have seen some excellent pitching and a fair amount of offensive frustration.

Regardless, its good to see the Cubs picked up their third straight victory... we're now only one game below .500 Woo!

From the boxscore, it looks like Sergio Mitre had a good outing. He went seven innings, allowed two (earned) runs, walked one, struck out five, and allowed five hits.

Despite his strong outing, Mitre didn't take the win — largely because Roger "The Rocket" Clemens pitched five innings of two hit baseball while allowing no runs. This outing lowered the Rocket's ERA to 1.19, but his record is still only 3-2. If I were Roger, I'd be thinking about walking into Drayton McLane's office tomorrow and asking to be moved.

Jason Dubois: My favorite Cubs rookie this year continues his mixed play. In the fourth, he botched a play in left field when a flyball was hit into the well and he didn't follow the ball into the leftfield corner. His miscue on the ball directly led to both Astros runs in the inning. However, in the eighth, Dubois led off the inning with a double and scored on Todd Hollandsworth's pinch hit single. Dubois' average now stands at .261, his OBP at .301, and his SLG at .565. Meanwhile, he has struck out 28 times in 72 AB (38.8%), while mustering only 2 bases on balls. So, while he's struggling in some aspects of the game, "The Face" has an .866 OPS, which is definitely respectable. ("The Face" is not my nickname for Dubois... but I certainly like it. "The Face" was proposed by another member of the CBA, but I can't find the post. If its your's, please leave the URL in the comments and I'll link to you.)

Todd Hollandsworth: He's back to pinch-hitting... and back to getting huge pinch hits. Last Wednesday, Holly singled in the game tieing run against Pittsburgh in the Cubs win. Today, Hollandsworth drove in Dubois with a pinch hit single to centerfield. That run got the Cubs on the board and was hugely important in the win.

Aramis Ramirez: Aramis made the final out of the eighth inning. Last year, if Ramirez came up in the late innings of a close game with men on base, the ball was likely to end up on Waveland Avenue. This year, A-Ram is struggling mightily. While he's hit seven home runs (on pace for about 28), the rest of his game is suffering. He's currently hitting .238/.317/.456 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 18 RBI in 147 AB. Furthermore, the strikeouts are up a bit too (although I believe his K/AB rate has decreased since April). Ramirez is on track to strike out 82 times this year as compared to 62 last year. On the other hand, the walks are up. He's on pace for 68 walks versus 49 last year.

Aramis Ramirez rate stats decline
Avg: -.080 from 2004 to YTD 2005.
OBP: -.060 from 2004 to YTD 2005.
SLG: -.122 from 2004 to YTD 2005.

The Attend-O-Meter is up to date.

Posted by Byron at May 24, 2005 11:46 PM | |

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