- At least on 2, perhaps 3, occasions so far this season, it appears the Cubs have missed signals coming in from the third base coach, Ivan DeJesus. Often times the players are blamed for these missed signals, but keep an eye on this because I don’t believe DeJesus is really well fitted to being a third base coach. I think it is completely possible that DeJesus may have mixed up the signals. If this were to continue, I think it would be fair for people to start calling for Pat Listach to assume that role instead. The Cubs have two 1st base coaches right now…unfortunately, one of them is coaching third instead.
- It is very apparent where the roof came off at the ballpark during the blizzard this winter…and it looks as if they didn’t make much of an effort to do a really good job at repairing it. That makes me think that a major redo of the entire pressbox is not too far off in the future. They wouldn’t have sunk much money into the repair of the roof right now if they knew they were going to have to replace it again anyway.
- What is Carlos Marmol’s history pitching back to back games?
- Castro is really, really good…but he still has a lot to learn.
- There seemed to be a significant lack of vendors in the stands during the games this weekend. What’s up with that? (Actually, there were plenty of beer vendors…but very little of the rest.)
- It looks as if significant sections of the concrete in the lower seating bowl were replaced this past off-season.
- The engraved brick pavers around the ballpark…particularly the ones at the corner of Clark and Addision…appear to be crumbling at a fairly substantial rate.
- The Pirates are a bad defensive club. The Cubs had ample opportunities to take advantage of that this weekend, and failed to capitalize on it. It’s only 3 games, but that is a sign of a club that probably isn’t going to very good. Good teams punish opponents that give them extra outs.
- Look, Kosuke isn’t a good leadoff hitter. Just keep Castro up there. Stop worrying about coddling this kid. If he can’t handle it, big deal! Move him out later. But for now, let’s just see if he’s got the goods for that.
- I don’t recall the Cubs ever having vendors selling cookies…but they did this year.
- Len and Bob have the windows taken out of their broadcast box already.
- After a game like Friday, where it rained all day and the grounds crew had to spread that kitty-litter crap all over the infield to keep it dry, how do they get all the stuff off the infield before the game on the following day? It’s amazing that you’d never know that they had spread they kitty-litter/diamond dry stuff all over the dirt the day before!
- I’m sorry, but Wayne Messmer > Jim Cornelison.
-Carlos Pena can pick balls out of the dirt damn well. The rest of his defensive abilities seem to be a bit overstated, though.
- Jeff Samardzija looks lost out there. In his appearance on Friday, he looked as if he was trying to alter his delivery on every pitch to try to find something that worked. It’s not necessarily Spellcheck’s fault that it has come to this, but if he wants to be a productive major league ballplayer, he needs to get a fresh start somewhere else.
- Mark Riggins…do something to impress me, please.
- Mike Quade’s handling of Ryan Dempster on opening day was a bit questionable. I thought Demp was done a couple of batters into the 6th inning. Most of the other fans around me felt the same. Lou Piniella had the same issue when handling Dempster the last couple years. Watch to see if Quade learns to recognize when Dempster is spent.
