Five in a row

With today's 6-5 debacle, the Cubs have now lost 5 in a row to the Pittsburgh Pirates and have the worst record in the National League. Juan Mateo took the ball and turned in his best strikeout game thus far, striking out seven and walking none. I guess we can take solace in that performance. In fact Cubs' pitching struck out 13 Pirates in nine innings, a season high for the Major League strikeout leaders.

Small ball failed for the Cubs today. They banged out 15 hits and got 4 walks, but only 3 of the hits went for extra bases. They also swiped four bags, but Juan Pierre was thrown out in a tied game in the 8th inning. Scott Moore pinch hit in the fourth, getting a walk. He stayed in the game due Aramis Ramirez getting ejected for tossing his helmet on the ground. Moore stayed in to strike out once and ground out to second. Derrek Lee got three singles and stole two bases, he's starting to get back. Ryan Theriot had a couple of walks and a triple. Matt Murton knocked three singles and walked once, his batting average is back up to .295. It'll be nice to see him get that to .300 before the season is over. Even little Ronnie Cedeno had two knocks. 19 base runners and five runs. Terrible.

Both bullpens pitched well in relief of poor starting performances. The Cubs gave up one run, and guess whose it was. Ryan Dempster took the loss in the ninth in another dreadful performance. Dempster has now allowed runs in five straight outings and six of his last seven. Can someone else close? Carlos Marmol threw a couple scoreless innings. He's going to be one hell of a closer in time. Scott Eyre and Roberto Novoa threw scoreless innings. Novoa has not given up runs in five consecutive outings and Eyre has given up 1 run in 2.2 innings scattered over three outings since coming off the DL earlier this month.

Jason Bay continued to torch Cub pitching knocking two bombs off Mateo. He had four RBI and walked in another plate appearance, I can't wait until 2010 when he's no longer under contract for the Pirates. Freddy Sanchez got two more knocks and got his average up to .347. Several years ago I said Sanchez would develop into a .300 hitter in the majors, he's making me look bad in the opposite direction expected.

Tonight's attendance of 31,494 was the lowest home game attendance of the season. Quite frankly it's about time the Cubs notice some sort of dropoff because of their play. Living away from Chicago I would expect that most schools started today.