The Cubs are a AAA team.
They have a AAA manager.
They have a AAA pitching coach.
They have mostly AAA players.
They obviously have a AAA training staff. (All the injuries???)
They have a AAA scouting system.
They play in a AAA ballpark.
And they aren't even a very good AAA team. With the exception of Albert Pujols, the Cardinals are pretty much have a AAA roster right now too and the best the Cubs AAA team could do against the Cardinals AAA team was take them to extra innings in a couple of the games.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the Cubs take a bus from city to city on road trips instead of flying.
Z was also right about calling out his team.
People say that he focused his attention entirely in Carlos Marmol. Outside of allegedly looking over at Marmol's empty locker during his rant, Zambrano didn't say or do anything that should have been characterized as calling out any particular teammate.
Zambrano repeatedly said "We" in his rant.
"We should know better than this."
"We played like a Triple-A team."
"We should know better than this."
"We should know better than we did on the field."
"We should know that Ryan Theriot is not a good fastball hitter."
"We should know that as a team."
"We should play better here."
"We stink."
That's accusing a lot of people besides Carlos Marmol. That's blaming Koyie Hill. That's blaming pointless pitching coach Mark Riggins. That's blaming poor scouting. That's blaming the entire roster for not being attentive enough to know game situations. And that is most importantly blaming Mike Quade for not having this team prepared to play on a daily basis.
Zambrano has been very quick to blame himself this season when something doesn't go quite right on the field when he pitches. That's different than in previous years. In the game last year when he got into a shouting match with Derrek Lee he was as much to blame about what happened in that first inning as anyone. He was wrong then.
Z is one of the last people to blame for this team being as bad as it is right now. Yet, to his credit, he lumped himself in with the rest of the team when venting yesterday.
Should it have been Z's job to do this? No. But no one else in this organization is stepping up to say anything.
What it shows is that the Cubs have a void in leadership at every level from executive management to the playing field...a void except for one starting pitcher who had the guts to stand up and say exactly what needed to be said.
