A's Invited to Wrigley Independent Theater for Slapstick Comedy (A's Win 9-5)

I just watched three hours of something. It sure wasn't baseball. If this is what the Cubs are putting out on the field on a regular basis...I'm sorry, Chicago.

Let's get the easy stuff out of the way--Trevor Cahill was great tonight. His final line of 4 ER over 5.2 IP is absolutely deceiving. Cahill had command of all of his pitches, and had the ability to throw his four-seam fastball, sinker, changeup, and curveball for strikes. He lost his command a little bit towards the end, and suffered from a very Zito-esque case of bad ump-ness, but otherwise he was just as sharp as he has been for the last month or so. Zambrano was definitely not as sharp, as the A's hit him around quite a bit. But much of his pitching woes were caused by...

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The Cubs defense. "Defense". They don't make quotes big enough to put around that word. The Northsiders made four errors tonight, and that's generous. These errors weren't silly mistakes, they were mammoth mental and physical lapses in damn near everything. The spectacularly awful kind of errors. The JaMarcus Russell kind of errors. The Robert Green of errors, for our international readers.

In the fourth inning, the A's loaded the bases with no outs. Three-time Gold Glove winner Derrek Lee inexplicably booted a grounder by Trevor Cahill (yes, the AL pitcher) and allowed a run to score. The very next play? He flat-out missed a throw from shortstop Starlin Castro, letting the ball clank off of his glove. Two more scored. In the top of the seventh, right fielder Tyler Colvin dived for a ball near the ivy wall, missed, stumbled up, ran to the ball, and airmailed a throw. The end result? A triple for Cliff Pennington, who immediately ran home on the error. Unbelievable. Inconceivable. And altogether hilarious.

Stay tuned for an airing of The Three Stooges' latest short, as Gio Gonzalez faces Ryan Dempster tomorrow at 5:05 PM.