The wind was blowing out on Sunday afternoon and the Cincinnati Reds took full advantage of it, bombing the Fighting Colvins 14-3 while the rest of the Cubs took the day off. Well, that’s not quite how it actually happened but it sure felt like it as Tyler Colvin’s two home runs accounted for all the team’s offense on this day. The Reds did most of their damage against starter Ted Lilly and reliever Jeff Stevens. Lilly gave up four home runs in 6.2 innings, and allowed nine runs to cross the plate. Piniella then called for Stevens who faced six batters and failed to record an out while surrendering four runs and two more long balls.
Cincinnati added another home run in the ninth inning off Andrew Cashner giving them a total of seven on the day. You know it’s a bad day when light hitting OF Drew Stubbs goes deep not once, not twice, but THREE times (Stubbs entered Sunday hitting .233 with 8 HR’s). Things got even worse when seldom used backup catcher Corky Miller and his glorious mustache launched his first home run of the season into the seats in left. I would put Miller’s mustache up there in the modern day pantheon of great sports staches, right there with guys like Wannstedt, Ditka, and even newer members like Michael Phelps and Carl Pavano. If you have not seen it yet, seriously, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
Overall, with the exception of Tyler Colvin’s two home runs it was just a bad day for the Cubs. They are now 35-47, putting them in fourth place in the Central, and 11.5 GB of Cincinnati. Two series remain before the all star break as the Cubs will head west to take on the Diamondbacks and Dodgers. Even though 80 games still remain it feels like we are approaching “last gasp” time with this team. If they don’t catch fire by the end of the month they will simply be too far out of the race to even think about tracking down the Reds or the Cardinals.
