The Many Moods of Kosuke

The Cubs are currently 5-4, which may be somewhat underwhelming given their high expectations and the relative weakness of the rest of the NL Central, but, while some of the losses have been quite frustrating, none of them have really disturbed me all that greatly. The bullpen has had some early issues, which Kevin Gregg being less than lights out in the closer's role, and the hitting has been very up and down, but ultimately I haven't seen anything in the nine games played thus far that radically changes my outlook of the team. Geovany Soto has been banged up early on (maybe a product of playing in the World Baseball Classic) and is hitting just .071. You would certainly expect him to heat up. Milton Bradley is also battling a groin injury (of course, Bradley being achey at times during the year was something fully expected going in) and has hit just .056, though he has been able to draw some walks in key situations, and has had enough good ABs to say that he's been helping the club.

One very positive thing amongst the somewhat luc-warm start has been the play of Kosuke Fukudome. Kosuke already has 3 home runs on the year, including a three-run shot yesterday against the Cardinals which, at the time, gave them the lead, though they couldn't hold it. Fukudome wound up with only 10 home runs for all of last year. Of course, early in the season was when Fukudome was at his most brilliant last year, and he's output got progressively worse as the season went on. Will the same thing happen this year? Who knows. What we can do now, though the mighty power of Baseball Reference, is compare what Kosuke did at the start of last season to what he's done 9 games into this season. With a sample size of 9 games, who knows how much its really worth, but whatever, it'll be fun!

Through 9 games:

stat	2008	2009
Avg	.371	.375
OBP	.488	.487
Slg	.543	.781
OPS	1.031	1.268
HRs	1	3
RBIs	6	8
K	6	4

The power numbers are actually better, and the average and OBP are very close. Maybe, just maybe, that with Fukudome-san having a year to get acquainted with the increased travel in the MLB and playing outdoors (lots of domes in Japanese baseball, so I'm told), he'll be able to maintain this pace more consistently throughout the year. Maybe wishful thinking, but it doesn't seem impossible either.

Today the Cubs are playing the Cardinals with Carlos Zambrano on the mound against a 24 year old making his Major League debut. If they lose their third in a row today given these circumstances, I'll be a little bit more down on them than after any of the 4 losses to this point. Whatever happens though, its still very, very early yet.