The earth shook, the brilliant blue sky gasped, and Cubs fans near and far hung their heads in disbelief. This has not been the most salutary of seasons on the north side of Chicago, but when Prince Fielder triples--stop and digest that for a moment: Prince Fielder tripled--against you, the season is well and truly lost. I had thought that Baseball Prospectus's recent inclusion of the Cubs in their year-ending series "Kiss 'Em Goodbye" had been just a touch premature, but not after today's 7-4 loss to the Brewers.
In fairness, the World's Largest Vegetarian, as he was dubbed by my one and only, does triple about twice a year. Heck, he's got seven lifetime. But it's a disheartening sight all the same--which, thanks to some corporately provided tickets, we witnessed from much better seats than we had had last time, in May, when we had slogged out to the far reaches of the upper left-field deck. Back then, though, the season was young, Lou Piniella seemed to still give a crap, and the Cubs were surely bound for Chavez Ravine and Fenway Park in October instead of Pebble Beach.
In the event, Fielder was stranded at third, and anyway the real damage had already been inflicted the inning before, when Jody "My Batting Average Is the Numerical Representation of Valentine's Day" Gerut hit a grand slam off Randy Wells. Wells had started the game with ten or so consecutive pitches outside of the strike zone, so it's not surprising he got lit up by someone. But Jody Gerut? Soon enough we were being treated to a tour of the lesser monuments of the Cubs bullpen and the continued perplexing behavior of Milton Bradley, who abruptly took himself out of the game for no immediately evident reason after singling in the bottom of the sixth. It's OK, Milton, you weren't the only one who kind of just wanted to go home today.
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