THE FAT LADY IS WARMING UP

Picture one of those modern buildings where you can stand on the sidewalk and see the elevators as they activate. You look up and see two of them in motion and one is slowly moving up while the other is heading downward. And with that, you have the entire story of chicago baseball as the WHITE SOX continue to climb for the future while the CUBS have become.......the cubs.

It's pretty obvious that the six million dollar man, aka JOE MADDON, will out of a job at the end of the season and spends his days mentally flipping off THEO EPSTEIN, who gave a long radio interview on saturday and had several chances to endorse maddon for the future but failed to do so and avoided the question about a contract extension like the answer was radioactive. 

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if maddon was relieved of his duties before the end of the year. The cubs don't catch the ball, they run the bases like tee-ballers and are the worst team in baseball when it comes to getting hits with runners in scoring position and when you fail in the fundamental categories, that's on the manager.

i think Maddon sealed his fate in Pittsburgh this past week when he left catcher WILLSON CONTRERAS in right field in the ninth inning rather than switching him to first base and letting GOLD GLOVE ANTHONY RIZZO play right field.

 if you can walk and chew gum, you can play first base for a few innings. now you may not dig a bad throw out of the dirt but normal throws by an infielder would be certain outs. yes, contreras made a great throw the previous inning to get a runner at home but late in the game, you field your best defensive team and maddon failed to do that. it's time for joe to start packing and let bench coach BRANDON HYDE finish out the year.
*********************************
And while we're pointing fingers, epstein should get thumped right in the middle of his forehead for his player acquisitions like EDWIN JACKSON, YU DARVISH, MIKE MONTGOMERY and JASON HEYWARD, (although having a good 2019.....but 23 million a year? yikes).

my personal favorite, the JOSE QUINTANA trade which brought the WHITE SOX ELOY JIMENEZ & DYLAN CEASE and two others which effectively emptied the cubs farm system and left them bobbing in the water.

The cubs have needed a second baseman and a leadoff man since DEXTER FOWLER left in 2017 but neither maddon or epstein could recognize what was right at the end of the bench for three years.....TOMMY LA STELLA. or should i say 2019 ALL STAR STARTING SECOND BASEMAN TOMMY LA STELLA, who is currently hitting .300 in the leadoff spot for the angels and has 16 homers and 44 rbi's. and they gave him away for nothing.

maybe it's also time for theo to start looking for future employment.
*******************************
The cubs are an aging, slow team that can't play defense. this team looks like they're just going thru the motions and the only factor saving them this year is that the entire central division has turned to crap but at least cub fans are finally realizing that the "DYNASTY" is over.

This weekend saw the city series end in a draw at 2-2 which is making cub fans even crazier especially when the guy they used to have in their system beats them twice in lass than a month. i promise you there's more of that to come.

 hope they don't get stiff necks watching that south side elevator.......

later dudes