Cubs fall to Reds as bats take a night off

Cubs manager Lou Piniella spotted Marty Brennaman wearing a pink shirt in the interview room Wednesday when he decided to poke some fun at the Reds announcer.

[Boystown Cub Lover]

giggity

[Charlie Gies]

Well, the Cubs' bats may have taken the night off, but the Good Guys' bats sure didn't yesterday! So the Reds managed to beat the Cubs without Ken Griffey, who homered yesterday for the Good Guys. Go, White Sox! Boo, Cubs!

[JACK]

HAAA!! They reset this board! Guess the moderators/flubbie fans couldn't bear all the negative comments either. Too funny!!!

[Bill]

Charlie Gies + JACK = Losers from the WS message boards that have nothing else to do but bash the Cubs who by the way have a comfortable 5 game lead. HA!

[Brad]

I love Derek Lee but he really needs to get put on the bench now and have Hoffpauer come and spell him. He has now gone almost a full month again without a HR, which is beyond ridiculous. 2 HR's in the last 60 days or so...This guy grounds out to 3B or SS on almost every at bat now and even when he does get a hit it is either over the 3B or SS head or between them. Before long they are going to place a major pull shift on this guy. I have never in my 40 some years seen a guy lose his power stroke so often then this guy, what are the coaches doing about this? We need his HR stroke and now. How many double plays has he hit into already? I know he leads the league. The cubs are now 17-18 in 1 run games, that is a stat lost among all the other great things going on. But come playoff time this could be a huge problem. The Cubs really should be on about 14-15 game win streak right now, but they seem to once a week come up with one of these 1-0 or 2-1 losses...the pitchers are going great the offense needs to stop making excuses and start doing the little things to win close games...Derek and Rammy that means hitting the ball the opposite way when we have 1st and 3rd and not trying to pull it and hit into a double play that you do not even run out. I think the cubs can win it all and expect they will, but this DLee things needs to get straightened out right now!

[Dan]

Ya know, when the Sox won the WS a few years back, I was happy for them and my Chicago neighbors. Most Cubs fans I know felt the same. Why can't Sox fans open their hearts a bit and be happy for the Cubs and their fans? After all, we are neighbors. How about a little bit of love, peace and harmony? Really.

[Czarge]

The pop-up that dropped behind Ryan Theriot should have been caught by leftfielder Alfonso Soriano. I know he has talent but often times I can't stand watching his numerous mistakes in the field and on the bases.

[RamRod]

Big picture:

Brad, good points and most true. However, 15 game winning streaks we managed to pull off during previous failed runs at the championship. You can't win them all and, now and again, you're going to lose one. We still are doing something different this season from seasons past, winning series. It's tantamount to two steps forward for each step back, as opposed to the opposite in prior seasons.
Lou may have been able to strategize a win, last night, but would have ruined the setup for the next two. Samardjia (sp?) is looking confident and is coming along at a nice pace, Lou style.

[joe]

Dan wrote:

Ya know, when the Sox won the WS a few years back, I was happy for them and my Chicago neighbors. Most Cubs fans I know felt the same. Why can't Sox fans open their hearts a bit and be happy for the Cubs and their fans? After all, we are neighbors. How about a little bit of love, peace and harmony? Really.

To be quite honest, White Sox fans hear everyday about how it was a fluke and they got lucky. We also hear everyday that the Cubs still outdraw the Sox and we're the second team in the second city. Even when close to two million people showed up at the ticker tape parade, there was an article saying, "Can the Sox win more hearts" like no one showed up. There was very little respect given. There were exceptions, of course

[Brad]

very true RamRod and I agree, it is impressive to keep winning series and that is the goal. I just don't want to lose games now to teams we should be sweeping because Sept is going to be a tough month..but if you win all of the series we will be NLC champs

[Brad]

As we speak DLee has just hit into another double play....this is really beyond ridiculous....

[Another Sox Fan]

Dan wrote:

Ya know, when the Sox won the WS a few years back, I was happy for them and my Chicago neighbors. Most Cubs fans I know felt the same. Why can't Sox fans open their hearts a bit and be happy for the Cubs and their fans? After all, we are neighbors. How about a little bit of love, peace and harmony? Really.

I wish the Cubs well. I honestly do. They're my second favorite team behind the Sox. But most Cubs fans I know are extremely antagonistic toward the Sox: they HATE them, and I mean HATE them. If you look at the Sox thread today, you'll see that there are a fair amount of postings from Cubs fans talking smack, as appears to be the case every day. You put up with the BS for enough years, you get tired of it, that's all and you talk smack in return.

That being said, this is the best Cubs team I've seen in my lifetime and I wish them well -- just not at the expense of the Sox!

[Brad]

I feel the same for the sox and most sox fans I know HATE the cubs..we all know hate is learned, you are not born with it...my kids will be taught to like both and I hope other will do the same and maybe we can someday get past the HATE

[Dan]

Hey Joe,
Thanks for the response. I agree that the media coverage is lopsided. Sox probably could use a better PR team.
But you go to Comisky (wishing it still were) and there are oodles of Cub hating/bashing t-shirts, hats, souvenirs etc. Can't we all just get along and be happy for one another?
God willing, we'll be in the WS against each other and Chicago can be a bastion and shining light of good sportsmanship.

[Fukudome]

As a Sox fan, I do not know any Sox fans who hate the Cubs. We just hate know-nothing, arrogant for no reason Cub fans. Keep your kids in sight at all times because the second you turn your back they will "learn" to hate the fans of the other team.
That being said, the Cubs will win their division by at least 10 games and if their pitching holds up they should be in their first world series in 63 years. Anthing less is a miserable failure of a season...again.