‘Weekly’ Hit Ground Ball 2008 – Week Eighteen

Watch out for the brooms

With a 162 game regular season, teams quickly learn not to dwell on individual results.  A poor performance can be put right the following day, so long as the bad memories are banished before the next game starts.  Similarly, a team that revels in a win for too long can be undone by their own complacency.  ‘Keep an even keel’ is the motto Major Leaguers live by. 

Sweeps, however, aren’t quite so easy to forget; particularly four-game sweeps involving the top two teams in a division race.  There’s no doubt that when waking up this past Friday, you would have preferred to have been a Cub rather than a Brewer. 

Chicago headed into Milwaukee for a four-game series against the Brewers on Monday, just a solitary game ahead of their rivals at the top of the NL Central.  While it may have been only the final week of July, the series was played in an atmosphere reminiscent of a crucial clash at the end of September.  Nobody thought the results of the four games would have a decisive impact on the standings, but both sides recognised that an opportunity to deal a psychological blow was there for the taking. 

As the home team, the onus was on the Brewers to win the series and they must have been confident when looking at the way their starting rotation was aligned.  Their newly acquired ace CC Sabathia would take to the mound in the opener to be followed by their other ace, Ben Sheets, in the second game.  When the Cubs took the first game 6-4, thanks to plating two runs in the top of the ninth off reliever Salomon Torres, and then earned a straight forward 7-1 victory in the second behind Carlos Zambrano, Milwaukee were left shell-shocked. 

Momentum can be a powerful force and now it was fully behind the Cubs.  Two games, two wins, coming against the Brewers’ two best pitchers.  A 7-2 victory on Wednesday night, in a game shown live on Five, secured the series victory and left the result of the final game virtually a foregone conclusion.  Chicago took their brooms out and swept away with a comprehensive 11-4 win.  A one-game slither of a lead in the division standings had become a five-game cushion in just four days.  The reeling Brewers didn’t know what had hit them. 

It called to mind that fateful five-game series between the Yankees and the Red Sox back in mid-August of 2006.  New York strolled into Boston and swept them  over an incredible four days that will live long in the memory of Yankee fans.  The Bronx Bombers extended a 1.5 game lead at the top of the AL East to a 6.5 game lead before the Red Sox knew what was happening.  The Red Sox never recovered for the rest of the season, suffering injuries to key players like David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez along the way, and the Yankees won the division by ten games before losing in the division series to the Tigers. 

ESPN reported at the time that the Yanks “celebrated in the dugout as if they’d just clinched a playoff berth” after that final victory against their bitter rivals.  As it took place a good three weeks earlier in the season than this other celebrated sweep, the Cubs wouldn’t have been looking to October just yet when walking off the field at Miller Park on Thursday.  Lou Pinella likes to tell everyone “not to get too giggly” and his players will be heeding his advice, especially after they were brought back down to earth with a bump on Friday, being shutout in a 3-0 loss at Wrigley against the Pirates. 

Meanwhile the Brewers licked their wounds and took out their frustrations on the Braves, blasting them 9-0 on Friday and beating them 4-2 last night.  The Cubs’ five game cushion is already back down to four.

August could be a key month for both teams as they provide ample opportunity to get some wins on the board.  Milwaukee have a favourable schedule during the month, including three games each against Cincinnati, the Astros and the Padres, four against the Nationals and six against the Pirates.  The Cubs will play nineteen of their twenty-eight games during August at Wrigley Field, where they hold the best home record in the National League at 40-15.

How the two teams navigate their way through August could have a strong bearing on the importance of their three-game series in Chicago in mid-September and the three-game series in Milwaukee to the end the regular season.  It’s possible that both might have made the postseason by that final series (as division winner and as the NL wildcard).  If so, it will not be a meaningless affair thanks to the sweep of this past week.  The Cubs will look to drive home their advantage heading into the play-offs; the Brewers will spy a chance for revenge.

The four-game sweep can be put to one side for the moment, but it will re-emerge in September to add to the drama of what should be a fascinating battle.

Week 18 wrap-up

The trading deadline passed with relatively little fanfare, but the players who have changed address have generally started well with their new teams.  Jason Bay has had a solid start in his first two games replacing Manny Ramirez in left field for Boston, but the Red Sox still trail the Rays (65-44) by three games in the East.  Ken Griffey Jr surprisingly moved to the White Sox (61-48) and batted in two runs during his debut on Friday night.  Their lead over the Twins in the Central has shrunk to just half a game though and while Minnesota didn’t add any new parts via a trade, they have improved their team by finally re-calling Francisco Liriano from Triple-A.  The Angels (69-41) didn’t need to make any changes, but they had a chance to obtain Mark Teixeira and they took it.  With the Rangers sitting 12.5 games behind in the West, it’s a move firmly with October in mind.

The one big addition to the National League was, of course, Manny Ramirez.  He launched his first home run in a Dodgers uniform last night and helped to bring L.A. to within two games of the NL West leading D-Backs (57-53).  In the Central, the Cubs’ (66-45) four-game lead over the Brewers has already been noted, but we shouldn’t forget the third-placed Cardinals who are just one further game back and whose winning record of 62-51 would be good enough to top both of the other two divisions in the league.  In the East, the Mets went 2-4 on the week to fall from first to third.  The Phillies (60-50) rise to the top again with the Marlins and the Mets 1.5 and 2 games back respectively.