It has become abundantly clear to anyone who watches the 2015 Chicago Cubs on a regular basis that manager Joe Maddon's policy of batting his pitchers 8th every day is simply not working. Yet, Maddon seems hell bent on sticking with this madness no matter how much it is hurting the team. Maddon is letting his ego get in the way of what's best for the Cubs.
The Cubs were lucky to win tonight's game. The final score was 4-3 but the Cubs' margin of victory could have been a lot more. In the bottom of the first inning the Cubs had already scored 3 runs were threatening to break the game open early. The Cubs had runners at first and second with two outs (naturally the Mets walked David Ross to Cub pitcher Jon Lester.) Lester hit a weak grounded to first base to end the inning and the rally (with Cubs second baseman Addison Russell sitting on deck.) It was a carbon copy of what happened with Kyle Hendricks in Sunday's game in Milwaukee and it left Maddon with egg on his face again.
This batting the pitcher eighth nonsense is simply not working and even the Mets' announcers were taking note of this. It continues to kill rallies for no logical reason. Conservatively speaking, it has cost the Cubs at least two wins. The upside of Maddon's madness is virtually nonexistent.
We all know the media loves Maddon. After all, he's the renaissance man who wears nerd glasses, can talk at length about white wine and has his players dress up in ballet dresses on road trips. But where I sit it's just a bunch of hype. Maddon is no superstar manager. So far in 2015 he has been bloody awful. Maddon really needs a slap of reality because in essence he has no rings for all the praise that gets rained down on him.
Let's just hope Maddon's tires of this batting order madness and admits the great GENIUS was wrong. In the meantime, Joe The Genius is doing a great job killing off Cubs rallies!
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