The Daily Goat: June 28, 2009

Cubs

The way the wheels came off, there’s no question.  Carlos Zambrano is today’s Cubs’ Daily Goat.

It started with an attempted pitchout – Zambrano saw Chris Getz heading for home on a squeeze and threw over the right-handed batters’ box.  It would have been an easy play for catcher Geovany Soto, but Big Z couldn’t control the throw.  The ball went wide, Getz scored, and Zambrano’s head looked as ready to pop as a giant pimple.

Zambrano intentionally kept his next pitch off the plate, too – nailing batter DeWayne Wise on his ass.  (Earlier Zambrano hit Scott Podsednik with a pitch, and Pods scored on Alexei Ramirez’s homer.)  Wise moved to second when Zambrano walked Scott Podsednik on five straight balls (one called a strike for god-knows-why), and scored when Cubs fielders dropped back-to-back can-of-corn pop-ups.  This ended Big Z’s day in five and a third.

Carlos Zambrano, thanks for making it such an easy decision.  You won Cubs’ Daily Goat running away.

White Sox

In the bottom of the sixth, just minutes after Zambrano beaned Wise, John Danks beaned Ryan Freel.  I can’t say if it was intentional – but it did closely follow what looked like an intentional one from Zambrano, and Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen has no problem with this eye-for-an-eye baseball strategy.

But what was Guillen thinking?  Zambrano’s strike on Wise was almost certainly his own idea – not sent in from Lou Piniella.  And the beaned runner came around to score.  If you were Guillen, wouldn’t you be ok with a role player taking a baseball to the fleshiest part of his body in return for a run?

Luckily Freel never made it home.  He was forced out at second, and the Sox got out of the sixth without giving up any runs.  But for trying to punish the Cubs by putting one of their worst hitters on base for free, Ozzie Guillen is the White Sox’s Daily Goat.