7/12/08: Got a Hard-on for Harden

Rich Harden made his Cubs debut today. And it was beautiful. 5 1/3 innings pitched, 5 hits, 3 walks, 10 strikeouts, and the beautiful goose-egg next to runs. The Cubs led 7-0 when he left the game, after a strikeout with men on 1st and 2nd. At no point, it seemed, were any Cubs fans worried that Harden might not succeed. He overmatched hitters with an array of fastballs and changeups that bordered on the ridiculous. He even dialed it up to 98 mph to get one K. He was everything that he was advertised to be.

However, the game, as is usually the case at Wrigley, was not over.

The Cubs gave up 2 evidently meaningless runs in the 8th, then Lou Piniella - who evidently thinks every game needs a dose of Marmolade - served up Carlos Marmol once again in the 9th. Marmol leads the world in innings by a reliever, mostly thanks to Piniella's fear of using anyone else. And I do mean anyone.

This would be fine if Marmol were currently as good as he was in April and May. He isn't. He gave up 5 runs, all in increasingly ugly fashion. At one point, Marmol fell down while attempting to make a pick at first base on an attempted double play. That didn't work. He booted a routine grounder into foul territory on another play. On still another, shortstop Ryan Theriot tried to get on ESPN by throwing to second base from his back after fielding a hot shot. He threw it ten feet over second baseman Mike Fontenot's head for the tying runs.

Somehow, Marmol managed to get out of the inning before the go-ahead runs scored. I missed how because of my heart attack.

After being escorted back to the apartment for the free frames, I saw Sean Marshall, who at one point was ready to go in the 9th and should have been put in, pitch the 10th and the 11th flawlessly. I saw Marshall lead off the 11th with a single, I saw Mark DeRosa coax a walk to get him to scoring position, and then I saw Piniella attempt to lose the game once again by sacrifice bunting with Fontenot, who only has been on base roughly 82 straight times at the plate. With a pitcher at second, he was naturally thrown out at third, basically wasting an out.

When Reed Johnson, who sports an OPS below .700 for the year against righthanders, stepped to the plate, I immediately attempted a reverse jinx by announcing that there was no chance at all that Johnson came through. Lo and behold...

So now the Cubs are 57-37 - best record in baseball. They have unequivocally the best rotation in the NL (Zambrano, Harden, Dempster, Lilly and Marquis, with Rich Hill seemingly on his way back from his mental breakdown early on), though with Brandon Webb and Dan Haren in the same league, the title of 1/2 punch - which means everything in a short series - is up for grabs.

But I'd go into battle with that group of 25 any day.