Really, how shallow is it to blame a loss on a 5’2 third base coach? Surely, the gawdawful-quit-on-the-mound performance by Matt Clement is the reason the Cubs lost, right? When mental dwarf Steve Lyons notices that you are looking at the bullpen hoping somebody’s warming up so you can go hide in the dugout, you’ve got problems.

But alas, we are left with this to ponder. Given the fact that the Cubs bullpen pitched five and two-thirds innings of hitless relief, and given that the Cubs offense roared back in a big way, wasn’t it a killer when Kim waved home one-legged Damian Miller with NOBODY out in the seventh inning of 7-3 game, only to have Miller be out by approximately 81 feet?

Not necessarily. In fact, we give you five reasons why it’s not Wendell’s fault.

1) The infield grass at Wrigley is higher than he is, making it nearly impossible for him to see what’s going on, on the field.
2) It’s the White Sox! Who knew they could string together two good throws on one play?
3) Wendell was not waving Miller home, rather he was waving at seventh-inning stretch “conductor” Chris Chelios.
4) A bee flew into his shirt and he was involuntarily waving to extricate the bee.
5) Wendell’s a complete dumbass, and if Dusty won’t fire his Pinapple-ass, it’s not his fault he’s costing the Cubs runs.

For the second straight day, the Cubs absolutely sucked the life out of the game by falling behind so much, so early. At least this time they battled back.

Jose Hernandez has only been on the team for two games, and already there’s a troubling trend afoot. Dusty seems hell bent on playing him at shortstop the last half of every game. On Friday he put him in late in the game to apparently get his feet wet in his return to the Cubs. Yesterday, a double switch sent Ramon Martinez to third and Jose to short. Does Dusty not remember that the only time Alex Gonzalez is useful is in the 10th inning of games? If you take him out, he can’t go back in. At least that’s what this copy of The Sporting News Rules of Major League Baseball tells me.

We’re looking into it, but we don’t believe there’s any hard evidence that Wendell Kim was waving Jay Williams over that curb on Thursday night.

Wasn’t it nice of Steve Lyons to spend about five minutes harping on that stupid, outdated, simply untrue crap about how Cubs fans don’t care if their team wins. This, after all, was brought up when the Cubs fans formed a lynch mob behind the third base dugout after Matt Clement was taken out. That booing that you hear, Steve, that’s not their cell phones ringing.

Clement has even grown back the Abe Lincoln beard, and it’s not helping. Looks like it’s time for him to find his fourth team in five years.

In the ninth inning, who DIDN’T know that Tom Goodwin was going to try and steal second base? Lyons tried to credit semi-comatose Sox bench coach Joe Nossek for stealing the Cubs sign, but who cares? Nossek is sitting about 30 yards from the field, I was watching the game 60 miles from Wrigley and I knew he was running. What do I win?

I honestly think that if you look at the Sox team, you can literally see that the reason they don’t win is because Kenny Williams has completely screwed things up.

Lyons spent a long time marveling how the Sox could score seven runs without either Thomas or Konerko. First of all, Thomas was 0-4 lifetime against Clement. Secondly, Konerko absolutely blows. He’s hitting .191 and has grounded into an MLB record 121 double plays already this season.

Or something like that.

Hey, at least Bobby Hill has had a nice seat the past six days.

Isn’t it amazing that all The Farns had to do to become a crowd favorite was to mug another player on the field? Hey, I’m not saying he did anything wrong. I’m just saying it’s interesting, is all.

Has anybody stopped to consider that maybe Wendell Kim just hates Damian Miller? After all that’s the THIRD time this year he’s sent him to die at the plate.

Here’s an interesting thing to look for with both Jose Hernandez and Sammy Sosa. Both of them will hit more homers if they just try to take the ball to right field. Right now, both of them are trying to jack balls out to left. As much as Jose will whiff (and he’s already K’d 96 times this year–wow) if he’ll try to focus on hammering balls to right center, you might just see Sammy and Jose combine for 50 bombs from here to the end of the season.

No.

Seriously.

I’m going to debunk a myth right now, because I guarantee you that Chip will bring it up today (oh, and you can bet we’re cranking the Chip Caray Terror Alert status to SEVERE for today). In 1999 the Cubs were in first place for the first series with the Sox that year. The Sox swept the Cubs and the Cubs never got back into first place. Many people (morons and Sox fans—wait, that’s redundant) credited the Sox with “ruining” the Cubs season.

But how about this? People tend to forget that in 1999 the Cubs had already lost Kerry Wood and Rod Beck, they’d traded some punk kid (Kyle Loshe–ouch) for Rick Aguilera, and they had just returned from a terrible road trip through Arizona (where a game ended when pinch runner Lance Johnson got picked off) and Cleveland (where the mighty Indians had absolutely lit up the Cubs). The Cubs were wobbling, and just waiting for somebody to smack them with a feather and put them down for the count.

But just watch, Chip will be all over this.

The Cubs have not lost four in a row all year. Should they flop again today (not likely with Big Z on the mound today) we can start the panic. But let’s wait and see what happens.