Derrek Lee

Photo above from espn.com

On Thursday, the Chicago Cubs offense dragged itself from the grave to score four runs on back-to-back home runs from Derrek Lee and Geovany Soto against their crosstown rival White Sox and eventually won on a walk-off single in the ninth inning.

On Friday, the offense took six innings off again, only to rally back from what started as a 7-0 deficit to the visiting Cleveland Indians. The Cubs scored four runs in the eighth inning before, in a moment of poetic injustice, longtime Cubs hero Kerry Wood was taken out of the yard by Lee to tie the game in the ninth inning.

The news going into today's Cubs vs. Pirates game was the roster moves made before the game. The Cubs added another player to increasingly expanding disabled list and sent down Neal Cotts and Bobby Scales.

To fill the void, they called up lefty reliever Jason Waddell, whose AAA stats aren't that impressive, 0-1 5.40 ERA 12 SO in 16.2 innings, but he is really the only lefty decent enough to call up.

I wrote an article on Saturday http://bleacherreport.com/articles/166673-come-to-think-of-it-put-derrek-lee-on-the-disabled-list suggesting the Cubs should have put Derrek Lee on the disabled list.

Well, boy, am I happy they didn't listen to me (not that they read B/R).

After a cold, rainy and just plain dreary and disappointing month of April, the Cubs begin the month of May 2-0. The story of the game was Ted Lilly, on the mound and at the plate.

On the mound Lilly was great, striking out 10, and walking none. He gave up five hits, one of which was a solo home-run by Cody Ross. At the plate Lilly came through with a 2 run double of the right field wall with two outs in the third inning.

Theodore Roosevelt Lilly III.

That about sums up Opening Day 2009 at Wrigley Field.

Rain delayed the start of today’s game for an hour and 12 minutes, but couldn’t put on a damper on the Cubs home opener or the mood of the 40,077 fans that showed up to spite it.

Ted Lilly walked catcher Chris Iannetta in the third inning and didn’t allow another Rockie to reach base until Garrett Atkins singled with two outs in the seventh to end the no-hit bid.

The Chicago Cubs opened a three-game homestand in Wrigley North with a 4-3 loss to last year’s Wild Card squad, the Milwaukee Brewers.

With one swing of the lumber, Koyie Hill provided Rich Harden with his first lead of the game via a two-run, sixth-inning bomb.

Milton Bradley got his first hit of the season, a solo jack to lead off the fourth inning. While Bradley has gotten off to a slow start hitting wise, it hasn’t been for lack of good at-bats.

So much has been made about Alfonso Soriano batting leadoff, but not nearly enough has been made about Derrek Lee holding onto his spot as the Cubs number three hitter. 

In 2004, former Cubs manager Dusty Baker took a lot of heat for not moving former Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa down in the order.  The former Cubs slugger batted third for the first 60 games before being moved down in the order.  Sosa finished the year with 35-home runs and was rightfully traded at the end of the 2004 season.