Fire Dusty Baker

Is it Dusty in the Windy City, meaning that the Cubs need to fire Dusty Baker? Do Cubs fans forget that he nearly managed the Cubs to a World Series birth in his first year with the team?

Should it fall back on Dusty that the Cubs are the lowest scoring team in all of baseball, scoring fewer runs even than the Kansas City Royals?

Should he be to blame for Mark Prior and Kerry Wood’s injuries leaving the Cubs once solid pitching staff in a mediocre at best category?

The Cubs offense seems to revolve around preseason MVP candidate Derek Lee, but in his absence Pierre and Ramirez, among others, weren’t able to find any rhythm at the plate. Can we assign blame to Baker for Lee’s injury and for the other starters not stepping up? The answer is obvious. It doesn’t seem too difficult to comprehend that even Joe Torre couldn’t have this team playing .500 ball so go against them with your baseball picks.

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Some might point to former Cub Joe Girardi’s work with a Marlins team which wasn’t expected to do anything in the NL East however, as proof that new blood can make a difference. I would argue that it’s the terrible Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals and the rest of the weakest division in baseball with just 1 team over .500 who have made the difference for Florida this year. The Cubs play in the tough NL Central, which is having a down year, but still has 3 ball clubs at .500 or better with Houston near the .500 mark as well.

For all you Cubs fans calling for them to fire Dusty Baker, I have the solution to turning things around, and it’s not firing Dusty (although I’m not a Dusty Baker fan). The cure-all in Chicago is quality relief pitching. The Yankees have Rivera. The Redsox have Papelbon. The cross-town rivals have Jenks. The Cubs have Dempster, whose name sounds a lot like dumpster and that’s where this season has gone for Chicago. Dempster came into the Cubs game last night with a 5-4 lead after a brilliant outing by Zambrano, and I don’t even have to tell you how the game ended up. Relief pitching has been the Cubs problem for years and each year the organization doesn’t do anything about it.

A few years back when they nearly made the World Series, they got some solid work from Joe Borowski who really pitched beyond his abilities. This was an accident for Chicago as Borowski has never been an unstoppable closer, but he had a great season and so did the Cubs.

I think Cubs fans would be surprised how well the bats would come around if hitters weren’t pressing so much at the plate in the late innings trying to regain blown leads. The issue is confidence, and right now the Cubs don’t seem to be confident in their pitching staff and why should they be. Firing Dusty isn’t going to solve the Cubs’ problems, but holding a fire-sale may be a step in the right direction.