Have Hendry and Lou Given Up?

Over at Out of the Ivy, Vlad suggests that Hendry and Lou have given up on 2009. Vlad argues that as soon as they announced Samardzija as the starter that they knew the season was over. I don’t really agree for a couple of reasons and I’ll get to those shortly. He also points out that Samardzija isn’t a very good pitcher and that the team already knew this. They were essentially conceding the game, Vlad says. I don’t know. The first reason I think Vlad is wrong is that when the Cubs announced Samardzija as the starter they were, what, 1 or 2 games out of 1st place? Were they even that far out? Samardzija was announced several days earlier and the Cubs were at the beginning of what would turn out to be a 5-game losing streak in which they lost all kinds of ground. The decision to start Samardzija was made before the Cubs were as far out of 1st place as they were when the game began yesterday. I think Vlad would agree that no manager or general manager in history has thought his team out of the race just 1 or 2 games out with 50 or so games to play. Most managers and GM’s wouldn’t consider their team out if there were only 3-4 games left. Let’s say the Cubs decided when they were 4.5 out. I still can’t think of any GM or manager that would consider his team out of the race with 50 games left to play. The Cubs definitely do not consider themselves out of contention. The real sign of whether or not the organization thinks they’re in contention or not is Aramis Ramirez returning soon to play after a cortisone shot. Were they to believe they were out of it, Ramirez would have season-ending surgery. The other reason I think he is wrong is I don’t think the Cubs had any better options. Esmailin Caridad is probably the only available option that would be better and he had thrown 5.1 innings just a few days earlier. He wasn’t available to start yesterday’s game. JR Mathes’ peripherals are no better than Samardzija’s. Mitch Atkins has performed significantly worse than Samardzija at AAA this season. Jose Ascanio was the only starter at Iowa that was a lot better than Samardzija and he’s with the Pirates now. Justin Berg has been a reliever. There was not other potential starter on the Chicago Cubs either. Tom Gorzelanny was given a few days off because of his leg injury. The other starters had already pitched in turn and they needed a replacement. Lilly and Zambrano are on the DL. Andrew Cashner has been a lot better, but there’s no way the cubs would have used him on 3-days rest, especially after his last outing in which he gave up 7 runs in less than 2 innings of work. Also at AA you’ve got Casey Coleman whose K/BB rate is 66 to 48. Chris Carpenter had made only 3 starts and in 11.1 innings had allowed 8 earned runs. Hung-Wen Chen has allowed 140 hits in 112 innings and has a WHIP near 1.5. Jay Jackson was demoted and Casey Lambert has struckout only about 4 batters per 9 innings. Simply put, the Cubs did not have a better option. That sucks. As predicted, the Cubs were blow out yesterday, but I can’t find a starter that’s big league ready or near big league ready that would have been a better option than Samardzija. Sean Marshall, I suppose, was an option, but he got lit up yesterday too so it’s not like the results would have been much different anyway. I’m also not convinced Marshall is that much better than Samardzija either. He is a little bit, but both pitchers pretty much suck in my opinion. I think when you consider how close the Cubs were to the Cardinals when this decision was made and that they didn’t really have a better option that it’s hard for me to believe that Lou and Hendry have given up.