Cubs Win #9 With Notes To Boot!

Another win last night runs the North Siders' streak to nine in a row! The team looked anything but flawless but it was enough. The thinking is: when this team is swining the bats right, I don't see another team that can beat them in their division (maybe the NL, who knows?). It's the second game I've had a chance to watch in great detail this season (Monday night's was the first). On that note, let it be said that it's one thing to follow your team from another market via internet and magazines, and it's another to get to watch every game. You can only pick so much up from reading Paul Sullivan and the Chicago newspapers.
So, from the second inning on, I kept some notes from last night's Cubs-Padres game. Maybe just for my benefit--who knows. I guess it's just for first impressions, both about this team and the telecasts themselves (the Padres announcers were featured again last night on MLB.tv).
Game Notes:
-Wil Ledezma pitched for San Deigo. Apparently, the 2nd base umpire pulled the stopwatch out on him during his releif appearance at Wrigley earlier this year because he was taking too long in between pitches. The announcers refer to him as Alan Embreesque (never before has that term been used).
-Since I'm bringing up the announcers, I should mention them by name. The play by play guy is Matt Vasgersian while the color is former major league pitcher Mark Grant.
-It's worth telling you that Vasgersian and Grant seem to complain--a lot. Any break the Padres don't get and they're on it. Two nights ago a fan threw a baseball back onto the field and Vasgersian pulled out his best Joe Buck/Randy Moss mooning voice. I won't say that they're being big homers, but they're going over the top a bit. This brings up a good point...I've watched the NBA League Pass the last five years or so, and the down side of the pass is that you have to deal with the opposing team's announcers half the time. I find myself hating Tommy Heinson for the same reason I love Johnny Red Kerr. They're both so passionate about their teams it glows in their announcing--(actually, scratch that. Heinson is just awful. I can't listen to him. Makes my ears bleed).
-Marquis gets into some trouble in the fourth inning and Lou comes out to talk to him. It's so painfully obvious that Piniella HATES Marquis. Personally, I don't think it's out of the question that Lou slips into the clubhouse while Marquis is on the mound and shits in Jason's locker. The destain seems that strong.
-My favorite moment of last night? During the 2nd inning when I was turning on the game, my girlfriend's phone rang. The call was from her friend in South Carolina. Knowing that when they get on the phone, I'll have 90 minutes of Cubs all to myself, I urge her to pick up the phone. She answers and manages to stay on the phone until the 7th inning. The timing of it all...
-Bottom of 5, the Cubs are fighting back. Ladezma is facing Ryan Theriot with the bases loaded. I don't have the exact number, but I think Theriot fouled off 32,123 full count pitches in that at bat. Cubs are trailing 3-1, and this is the at bat of the game in my opinion--Theriot manages to draw the walk and a runner trots home 3-2 Padres, which led to Derek Lee's bases loaded single. 3-3.
-Next batter was Aramis (facing new pitcher Brian Corey), who strikes out swinging but manages to turn the swing into a full out tantrum that results in him whipping his bat to the ground in disgust in one fluid motion. Short of snapping his bat over his knee, that's about as good of a tantrum as you can throw.
-It warrents mentioning that during Aramis' at bat, you could hear the "Let's Go Cubs" chant echoing through a pretty much half full Petco Park...always a good sign.
-Adrian Gonzales has been on a streak for the Padres. He was the first overall pick in the 2000 MLB Draft according to the announcers which leads me to check out who else was drafted that year...I'll put it nicely and say it was only an "awful" draft--at least through the first five rounds...I'm not going through all 50 rounds but it might as well point out that pick 1443 was Brooks Bollinger (Dodgers)--so we have our first Minnesota Vikings backup QB reference of the night.
-Speaking of the NFL, there is about 20 seconds of silence in the middle of the 7th inning when, for lack of a better topic, Vasgersian mentions out of nowhere: "Most Cubs fans probably don't even care that the Bears don't have anyone to play WR this year". I did a double take because I was so caught off guard by that back handed slap to any Bears fans that might be watching the game. But honestly, if you are a Cubs and Bears fan--who would you rather see win? As long as the Cubs keep winning games, Lovie Smith could throw Orton at WR and we wouldn't care.