Fire Bob Brenly!

It was the 6th or 7th inning and Theriot was at 3rd base with 2 outs. The ball got past the catcher all the way to the backstop and Theriot was busy working out Dance Fever mode. It was a wild pitch that scores even the slowest of runners from 3rd base and Theriot didn’t go. Sadly, Theriot represented the tying run. Fortunately Fukudome would walk with the base loaded so it didn’t come back to haunt the Cubs.

Brenly’s reason to this shitty baserunning? You can’t blame Theriot. He didn’t know how far the ball had gotten away. Good play to stay at 3rd.

Yep. The Cubs color analyst once again found a way to excuse some shitty play by Theriot.

The bunt has its uses. A speedy guy who can get a lot of infield hits and bunts well should use it to his advantage. There are some instances where the sacrifice bunt improves the team’s win expectation. Pitchers bunting with a man on 1st is probably better than having them take a chance at grounding into 2, or worse, having to run the bases should they actually get a hit. The point is that the bunt does in fact have its uses in today’s game.

That being said, it’s still entirely overused even if the frequency of the bunt is on the decline. There are fewer sac bunts than in year’s past, which is a good thing. There are fewer players who utilize the bunt as a way to get on base because we’ve learned that it’s not a high success play and we’ve also learned that having a player who can hit doubles is better than having someone who can bunt for a hit. But it has its uses as I said.

Bob Brenly is a big fan of the bunt. Talks passionately about it on a regular basis. You see, Bob likes the so-called small ball. I’m not really sure what that is. It’s defined differently by almost every person who says it. This past weekend the Cubs hosted the Pirates for 3 games and Bob’s brilliance was on display multiple times. It was also on display in Milwaukee.

I didn’t hear the one in Milwaukee as I have trouble listening to him for long stretches of time, but a reliable commenter on Another Cubs Blog informed us of this one. Bob said, basically, that the Cubs best offensive performances are in games in which they get lots of singles and essentially play the so-called “small ball.” This was intriguing, and patently absurd, because the Cubs had just displayed some power and some quick offense through the long ball just one game earlier. Any chance Bob gets to talk about guys like Theriot and Johnson in the most positive manner possible he can’t avoid.

On Sunday against the Pirates the Cubs wasted a 5-2 lead in the top of the 8th inning. The Bucs tied it up and it went to the bottom half of the 8th with the bottom part of the Cubs order coming up. After 2 quick outs, Soto worked a walk and Lou called on Reed Johnson to pinch hit for Chad Gaudin. Actually, he called on Daryle Ward to pinch hit and then the Pirates went to the lefty and Lou went to Johnson.

After the count reached 0-2, immediately after it, Bob mentioned to Len that he thought this at-bat would have been a good time to lay down a bunt and try to beat it out. Fortunately for the Cubs, Lou Piniella does not suffer Bob Brenly Disease. Reed Johnson swung away in the whole at-bat and on that very next pitch after Bob’s comments Reed Johnson hit a long home run to left center field. Cubs go up 7-5.

The lazy latino Alfonso Soriano would hit a meaningless, stat-padding home run to make it 8-5, which was the final score.

Let’s take a look at what happened here in slow motion so we can understand Bob’s incompetence.

• Tie game
• 8th inning
• 2 outs
• Soto walks
• Soto VERY slow
• Lou does not pinch run for Soto
• Bob wants Reed Johnson to bunt
• Reed Johnson hits home run

Read that sequence one more time for good measure. Now read it again paying particular attention to the 2 parts “Soto VERY slow” and “Lou does not pinch run for Soto.” Got it?

What happened here is that a very slow baserunner got in with 2 outs in the 8th inning. I’m sorry, but I feel I have to explain this in great detail because even a former player, coach and manager doesn’t get it. Lou does not pinch run. So what we are left with is a slow runner at 1st with 2 outs in the 8th inning, righty vs lefty at the plate.

Had you wanted to play Brenly-ball, you would, of course, pinch run for Soto with someone who was not “VERY slow.” Once you decide not to pinch run for Soto, you cannot possibly bunt in that situation. Well, you could, but it would be incredibly dumb. To be honest, it would be plain fucking stupid to pinch run for Soto and bunt. It’s just unthinkable that you’d do so after not choosing to pinch run for Soto.

Bob Brenly is not good at announcing or managing. If the Brewers ever fire Ned Yost as they should have done last year, I hope they hire Bob Brenly. Ray Durham is the one guy who is worse defensively than Rickie Weeks and the Brewers got him. Bob Brenly is the one guy who is worse at managing than Ned Yost. It makes sense.

The Cubs managed only 2 runs and 13 hits in their first 2 games after the break. They scored their 2 runs on opposite field solo home runs by Jim Edmonds and Carlos Zambrano. Does anybody have a guess as to what Bob said about the Cubs offense these 2 games prior to today’s game?

“Ryan Theriot has been the whole offense.” — Bob Brenly.

Granted, Theriot had 4 hits in 7 at-bats. That’s nearly a third of the team’s hits, but he’s scored no runs, driven in no runs, and has been a part of zero runs scoring in any way you can think of. He also ended a good rally for the team on the bases yesterday as he, once again, tried to advance on a ground ball hit in front of him and was easily thrown out at 3rd base.

How the Tribune can justify paying this dumbass is beyond me. I suppose one thing to look forward to is that the new owners are likely to clean house after the 2009 season. I can’t imagine any of the potential owners keeping Len and Bob around.

Geovany Soto, Carlos Marmol and, yeah, you guessed it, Ryan Theriot.

Here’s the link to the audio if you have some strange fetish where actually enjoy listening to Bob Brenly. For those who would rather not listen (I assume that’s most of you), I’ll sum up what has been told to me:

Bob doesn’t think Soriano should have made the all-star team. I can see where 40 RBI out of a leadoff man in 51 games would be a bad thing, can’t you? Or the 36 runs scored? In 51 games.

At Soriano’s current pace, had he played in 88 games (same number as Derrek Lee) he’d have 72 RBI, which would be 12 more than Ramirez’s team leading 60 and 19 more than Derrek Lee who hits 3rd. Soriano leads off.

He’s obviously a terrible player.

In tonight’s Cubs game, an 8-3 loss to the Giants, Len and Bob talked about Edmonds upcoming trip back to St. Louis which begins tomorrow evening. Both agreed Edmonds would get an ovation in his first at-bat. The two should have stopped there. Well, Len did, but Bob didn’t and that’s good for this site.

Bob then compared Edmonds return trip to St. Louis to Reed Johnson’s return to Toronto last month. Johnson, as I’m sure you remember, got a loud standing ovation from the Blue Jays fans. OK, first of all, Reed Johnson and Jim Edmonds are not similar in any way, shape or form other than they are both males who play a child’s game and get paid for it.

Reed Johnson is a career .280/.342/.407 hitter in 2511 plate appearances prior to tonight. Jim Edmonds is a .286/.378/.528 hitter in 7534 plate appearances. Edmonds has not only had 3 times as many plate appearances, he’s about 3 times the player Reed Johnson ever was.

Reed Johnson is a spectacular -17 BRAA (Batting Runs Above Average). Jim Edmonds? Just 345 is all. He’s only 362 batting runs above average better than Johnson. That’s it.

FRAA (Fielding Runs Above Average). Johnson is 17, Edmonds is 105. Just a measly 88 FRAA better than Johnson.

WARP3? 20.7 and 110.1. I’m sure you can figure out who is who.

Reed Johnson is a left fielder, Edmonds a center fielder. Easier to play LF than CF.

I have no idea why Bob must bring up Reed Johnson or Theriot or Fontenot in every single discussion, but he does it. Had Bob said “you saw the ovation Reed Johnson got in Toronto, I can’t imagine the ovation Edmonds will get” it would make sense.

But saying these 2 returns are similar is ridiculous. One player is good and played for many years in a city known for having good baseball teams. The other is not good and played for teams that haven’t been that good in awhile.

During yesterday’s game, 4th inning I think, Orioles batting in a 0-0 game with a runner on 1st. Roberts singles up the middle, the runner on 1st takes 3rd and Roberts takes 2nd on a routine single. Why? Because Fontenot was 15-20 feet away from 2nd base so nobody was covering the bag. Who does Bob blame? Edmonds, of course. He didn’t hustle to get the ball back in, which would have allowed Fontenot to race to 2nd base and tag a speedy runner in Roberts.

3 poor plays by Fontenot in 2 games and not once does Bob Brenly get critical. Instead, he blames Edmonds for one of the mistakes, one of them is just a timing issue (looking over his shoulder and not seeing the 3rd base coach waiving him in) and the other was that he tricked himself into being patient in the 8th spot, which is a spot all players need to be aggressive except Felix Pie.

Oh yeah, yet another error by Theriot and not one peep from the Cubs color analyst. I guess he couldn’t figure out who to blame for the error, but I highly doubt he thought it was Theriot’s fault. No way.

In the first inning of tonight game, Mike Fontenot, hitting 8th, took a called 2nd and called 3rd strike. Bob then explained that sometimes number 8 hitters think too much about the pitcher trying to pitch around them and that you need to be aggressive in the 8th spot in the lineup.

Earlier in the year when Felix Pie was batting 8th and swinging and missing quite often, striking out a lot as a result, Bob would seemingly complain every time he came up about his plate discipline and how he needed to be more patient.

So, white number 8 hitters like Fontenot get tricked into being patient when they should be aggressive, but hispanic players like Felix Pie should be patient and not aggressive.

This type of criticism from Bob has gotten so predictable I laugh when he says stuff like this that is in direct contrast to what he has said before.

[UPDATE] In the 4th inning, same game obviously, Ted Lilly singles up the middle and Mike Fontenot, on 2nd base, looks over his shoulder back at shorstop Alex Cintron who gets a glove on the ball, but it gets a way from him. Quade was waiving him in, but Fontenot wasn’t looking at Quade. Bob Brenly explained this away as a timing issue whereas Fontenot was looking over his shoulder at the same time as Quade was waiving him in.

If this was Soriano running from 2nd, we would have heard Bob say something like: “QUADE WAS WAIVING HIM HIM. YOU CAN’T RUN WHILE LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER; YOU HAVE TO PICK UP THE 3RD BASE COACH. THIS IS THE MAJOR LEAGUES. I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE WHAT HE WAS THINKING ON THAT PLAY.”