161-1 still possible

Game 1: Brewers 4, Cubs 3 (10 innings)

I'm sure a lot of Cubs fans are ready to jump off a bridge after a heartbreaking 10-inning loss to the Brewers on an Opening Day that, given the weather, almost didn't happen. I was at work, so I could only follow the game online (another unfortunate reality of post-college life) and I still haven't seen the highlights yet, which is frustrating because, even though the outcome wasn't what I was looking for it was a pretty exciting game.

Being opening day, each team had their ace on the mound to start and neither one would allow a run. Ben Sheets went 6 1/3 IP, giving up only two hits (both of which by Kosuke Fukudome; more on him later) and two walks. Apparently they had him on a pitch count for his first count because he left after 99 despite being so dominant. Carlos Zambrano has had a recent history of being awful in his first start of the year, but not so today. He went 6 2/3 IP allowing only 3 hits and 1 walk with 5 Ks in a surprisingly efficient 89 pitches. However, he left after a (successful) pick-off play at second where his forearm cramped up after the throw. Zambrano's seemingly chronic cramping problem was the subject of much discussion next year, and the fact that it happened on opening day this year on a mild, rainy day (its been theorized that his cramps step from dehydration) isn't a good sign at all. At the same time, while he was in the game, he was excellent and didn't get mired in 30+ pitch innings as he's been known to do, especially in early season games.

Carlos Marmol relieved Zambrano and pretty much picked up where he left off last year, pitching an inning and a third of perfect baseball. With the game still scoreless in the top of the 9th, enter: Kerry Wood. As I posted in my preseason threads, I've felt that Marmol, despite his youth, is the best man for the job. Well, my point was backed up today as Wood gave up three runs in the 9th to put the Cubs down. Obviously, this is only one game, and I'm sure Wood will have more than a few successful outing this year, but I still think Marmol is going to wind up being the closer by some time in May.

So, on a day in which the Cubs who weren't Fukudome were being no-hit going into the bottom of the 9th, it looked like a shutout was pretty much inevitable with the oft-injured, but one dominant Eric Gagne in to close. But then something crazy happened. Derrek Lee led off with a single, then Aramis Ramirez drew a 4 pitch walk. Up comes the new guy, Kosuke Fukudome, already 2-for-2 with a walk, who promptly hit a 3-run homer to tie the game. So Fukudome finished having reached base all 4 times (he did get picked off once) and was a triple away from the cycle. Not a bad first day on the job. Felix Pie tried to keep the 9th going with a single, but Mike Fontenot wasn't able to drive him home. Then, alas, the Brewers scored their 4th run on a sac fly in the 10th off of Bob Howry, and then David Riske worked a 1-2-3 bottom half to end the game. Frustrating game to say the least. Zambrano and Marmol were at their absolute best while they were in though, so hopefully the poor offensive output from everyone who isn't Fukudome was a one game aberration. There have been years in which the Cubs have been horrible offensive when they've scored like 16 runs on opening day, so who really knows. Off day tomorrow, then the Brew crew again on Wednesday.

W - Gagne (1-0) L - Howry (0-1) S - Riske (1)

No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (****)

Without question, No Country for Old Men is a movie that you need to see more than once to really understand. I was able to discern enough on my first time watching it to know that I really liked it, but I will certainly have to go back and watch it at least one more time to fully grasp everything that the Coen brothers put into the film. Hearing from other people who have seen it, I'm not alone. The film has a lot of subtleties that are easy to miss, and doesn't hold your hand with a lot of exposition explaining everything there is to know. Even if you don't want to feel like you have to study the intricacies of every scene, however, No Country for Old Men is still a tremendously exciting movie, and the reasons why it gets so much praise aren't hard to see at all.

First and foremost, this film is a huge departure from their previous films with both serious and funny elements like O Brother Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski. This movie is very dark and very muted and much more grounded in reality than the lighter side of Coen brothers movies. It sticks very close to the book on which its based, (so I'm told) and a lot of the film's dialog is lifted from it.

...

I put this off for way too long to remember what else I was going to write, but basically cliff's notes: its a very solemn, and subtle movie with a classic "unknown is more frightening than the known" type of villain that I think needs to be seen more than once to really appreciate.

Top 10 list for last year has been updated

The Darjeeling Limited

The Darjeeling Limited (***)

I kind of feel like I'm going to look back at this review at some point and wish I scored it higher, because Wes Anderson movies seem to grow on me the more I see them, but then again, who knows? The Darjeeling Limited is, indeed, the most recent film from auteur Wes Anderson, and unmistakably so. Anderson wastes no time reminding everyone of his off-beat style from the very beginning of the film, by actually beginning with a 10-15 minute "short film", dubbed "Hotel Chevalier", which is only later made clear to be in the continuity with the "main" Darjeeling Limited film. The short film is somewhat bizarre, introducing us to Jason Schwartzman's character Jack Whitman living in a surreal looking hotel room when he is suddenly visited by his once girlfriend, played by Natalie Portman. This scene/film/whatever runs for 13 minutes, contains almost no dialog, and adds almost nothing that I can discern to the main film that makes it worth it. I appreciate Wes Anderson's off-beat style, but in this case the whole venture of this short film is just awkward and detracts from the rest of the movie more than benefits it.

After the "Hotel Chevalier" segment, The Darjeeling Limited itself begins and quickly establishes that its less avant-garde and easier to digest than the aforementioned opening. At the same, it still is unmistakably Wes Anderson. The film's title refers to the train of the same name on which the three main characters spend much of the movie. Like the Belefonte, Steve Zissou's ship from The Life Aquatic, the Darjeeling seems sort of otherworldly in its design, and takes on a life of its own as Anderson pans from room to room. The central characters in the story are the Whitman brothers-- Francis, Peter, and Jack-- played by Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, and Jason Schwartzman respectively. The relationship between the three brothers has been strained ever since the death of their father, and a trip on the Darjeeling through India is Francis's plan to reconcile the brothers, hoping they'll have some sort of spiritual revelation along the way. Each of the brothers seems to possess a fatal flaw: Francis is too controlling (orders for his two brothers in the dinner car), Peter is clingy (wears his father's glasses - with his father's prescription in them), while Jack writes passive-agressive stories with fictional characters who obviously aren't entirely fictional and seems to want to bang anything that moves.

The brothers go through some amount of reconciliation throughout the film, but like most of Wes Anderson's movies, the ending is somewhat muted, and the film seems to be more about how all the characters get to the ending. In The Life Aquatic, this was in the form of a voyage to kill a jaguar shark complete with claymated ocean scenes and a preposterous battle with modern day pirates. I actually liked the over-the-top surrealness of Life Aquatic (most professional critics seemed lukewarm at best about it), but I found myself liking Darjeeling Limited as well. Even though the train itself seems to come directly from the oddest corner of Wes Anderson's mind, some of the starkest scenes take place off of the train out in the vastness of actual rural India. The film is of the same sort-of comedy, sort-of drama, hard to place mold of his other films, though more towards the serious side than Royal Tennenbaums or Life Aquatic (that's not to say that there aren't a few laugh out loud moments because there are). The film is quieter on the whole, and seems to be itself a sort of meditation in the same vein that the characters within the film are trying to find. I'm not sure if it led me to any great personal revelation though.

The biggest flaw in the movie is one in all his films-- one which seems to turn off a lot of people completely, while I can deal with it, though nevertheless acknowledge it-- namely, that Anderson seems to be too eager to make the film as off-beat as possible. I already mentioned the biggest example of this: the strange short film before "the real film" that is in the same continuity but doesn't have the same tone whatsoever. But throughout the film there's examples of dialog between characters where one character will ask a question, and the other will give a response that doesn't seem to be applicable to the question at all. Sometimes, it's for humorous effect, but a lot of the time its merely distracting, and its hard to take the emotion in the film as serious as it should be taken when characters don't seem to interact like actual people. There are other examples of this same basic idea, like Owen Wilson's character, whose head is wrapped in an absurd amount of bandages and keeps losing teeth throughout the movie because of a motorcycle accident. It seems at first like its supposed to be funny, but later on there are hints that Owen Wilson's character may be suicidal, and suddenly its hard to determine how you're really supposed to feel.

Even with all the off-beat stuff in Rushmore, Royal Tennenbaums, and Life Aquatic, I "got" those movies more than I did this one, I think. Even though Darjeeling seems more grounded in reality, his previous movies seemed to resonate more with me for some reason. Still, there are some enjoyable scenes that use the backdrop of India beautifully, and the performances by each of the three brothers are quite good. There are many worse ways to spend an hour and a half

CUBS: Spring Update 3

Jason Marquis pitched 4 innings yesterday, giving up no runs on 2 hits and 2 walks. This is his second consecutive good start, and it certainly looks like he's going to be in the rotation. As I said in my first post about this year's Cubs, I wasn't a huge fan of Marquis last year, so I dunno how I feel about that. His ERA in '07 wasn't that bad, but a lot of his good starts were towards the front of the season, and towards the end of the season he didn't seem to be able to get much past hitters. The last time I played baseball was coach pitch, but just observing on TV, it seems like he pitched worse last year than his ERA indicated. His ERA of over 6.00 the year before that with the Cardinals goes a long way to backing me up on that, methinks.

The Cubs made a round of cuts a few days ago and are now down to something like 42 players. Shingo Takatsu was among them, not surprisingly, as he got roughed up in several of his spring outings. He says he still wants to play in the states if given another opportunity, but he's not getting any younger and I really don't see it happening. I think it would be a futile effort on his part. Apparnetly, the Cubs are leaning towards a 12 man pitching staff, which I certainly advocate as every time the Cubs have tried to go to an 11 man staff since I've followed baseball closely everything has seemed to immediately go to hell. Also, according to Len Kasper the last time I saw the Cubs on TV, the Cubs are considering starting the year with Scott Eyre as their only left-hander. Carmen Pignatiello has yet to give up a run in 4 1/3 IP, which would seem to warrant a look, but we'll see.

One other note that I just heard while going to lunch on The Score, apparently the Cubs are now offering a package of Ronnie Cedeno, Donald Veal, Sean Gallagher, and someone else whose name escapes me for Brian Roberts. I suppose I'd be okay with that. It's giving up some young pitching, but Roberts would look great at 2nd base for the Cubs, and the Cubs are in a "win now" mode all the way.

Closer race update:

Carlos Marmol: 6 IP, 0.00 ERA, 1/1 Sv
Kerry Wood: 5 IP, 5.40 ERA
Bob Howry: 5.1 IP, 11.81 ERA

I said at the beginning of the year that I'd like to see Marmol get a chance, and the numbers seem to be in my favor to this point. ^^

Derrek Lee is now hitting .107 with 0 home runs for the spring, which is discouraging, but there's still another 2 weeks before opening day so we'll see what happens.

Next update: Probably after there's another round of cuts and battles for the last few roster spots start to manifest themselves.

CUBS: Spring Update 2

(Updated Sunday)

The Cubs played two split-squad games yesterday, winning the game in which most of the probable starters for the regular season played with Jon Lieber on the mound, and losing a game with mostly reserves (Daryle Ward was hitting clean-up) with Sean Marshall starting. Lieber was excellent, pitching 4 shutout innings allowing just 2 hits and no walks. Earlier in the week, Sean Marshall pitched 3 shutout innings himself. Today, Ryan Dempster went 4 innings allowing 1 run vs. the Royals. The Cubs put up 20+ hits against the Royals' pitching staff. Daryle Ward went 4-for-4 and Felix Pie had 3 hits of his own. Cubs look pretty good right now.

CUBS: Spring Update 1

The Cubs are 2-4 for the spring so far, and are beating the Diamondbacks 4-1 as I write this. Spring training records are always pretty much arbitrary, and indeed this year, despite the losing record, the individual performances for players who are actually going to make the roster have, by and large, been pretty good.

Let's start with Carlos Zambrano, who made his 2nd start of the spring today finishing with 3 IP
, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 3 K. Zambrano has been notoriously shaky at the start of seasons, especially last year, so hopefully we keep seeing numbers like this as he starts to build up more innings. Certainly only 1 walk is a stat you like to see, as Z's control was kind of all over the place last year. Oh yeah, he threw in a solo home run at the plate as well.

Also pitching today was Rich Hill, who finished with a line of 3 IP, 1 ER, 0 H, 3 BB, 1 K. Ted Lilly has made one start giving up 1 run, while Jason Marquis and Jon Lieber have been a little bit shakier, giving up 2 runs each in 1 start. Ryan Dempster has pitched 5 IP and allowed 2 earned runs, so the Dempster as starter experiment is off to an okay start. Obviously it's only March 5th, and going 2-3 innings barely constitutes "starting," so I don't know how much can be read into these numbers. I don't think anything will be settled in terms of the rotation for a while yet.

Carlos Marmol, with 2 scoreless innings, has fared the best out of the contenders for closer thus far, with Bob Howry and Kerry Wood giving up 4 and 3 runs respectively between them in 2 IP each. I'm on record as saying I'd prefer Marmol for the closer's spot. Elsewhere in the 'pen, Neal Cotts, trying to come back from a season in which he got sent down to AAA, didn't do himself any favors getting rocked in an outing on Sunday in a game that I actually caught some of on TV. Shingo Takatsu's return to American baseball is off to a rocky start as well.

As for the hitters, first and foremost let's talk about Kosuke Fukudome, who's done well for himself thus far. 5 games in his Avg/OBP/Slug is .400/.600/.700, and he hit his first spring training home run. Obviously, he's not going to have a .600 OBP in the regular season, but hopefully he does get some walks on a regular basis, something that Cubs hitters have not been able to do well enough in recent years. Ryan Theriot is off to a good start as well, with 7 hits and 2 steals. People fell in love with Theriot at the beginning of last year, but kind of wavered on him towards the end of the season when he got into a hitting slump. Hopefully he can start off well again this year and keep the momentum going this time. Geovany Soto's hitting 4-for-10 thus far, after a great end to 2007, so every indication points to him being just fine as the Cubs' starting catcher this year. Felix Pie probably has the early lead for the center field job, as he's hit 2 home runs already. Derrek Lee has 2 singles in 8 ABs, but he has 4 walks as well. There's no reason to believe that he won't be as good as should be expected.

So yeah, that's what's happening so far. Obviously these are really small sample sizes for statistics, and things may be completely different come April. We'll see. Next update: Whenever I feel like. Over the weekend maybe.

Full spring stats