Well that was fun

Your guest host while Supertramp is splitting time between Miller Park North and South is Joe Steve. You can find him regularly bitching about the Cubs and relishing in the fact that he is no longer slinging season ticket packages in the front office for the Crew over at All Things Steve.

A few notes from today's 8-2 shellacking of the Ted Lilly led Cubs at Miller Park South. Take these with a grain of salt since it is game 2 of 162, but doing things right usually leads to more wins, no matter what game of the season it is:

• Jeff Suppan pitched effectively and he really only made the one mistake to Lee. He tried to put a letter-high fastball by him with a 2-0 count, but I'll take a solo homer from Lee any day of the week. The Soto HR wasn't quite as bad since he battled to a full count.
• Jason Kendall > Geovany Soto: You can probably blame the Soto HR on me since I was talking trash about him after he let Hart and Kendall run wild in the 6th, but again, solo shots don't sting too much. That being said, Kendall's strike-him-out/throw-him-out DP right after Lee's HR in the 4th was a huge rally killer. And reaching base 5 times in 5 at bats is pretty damn good for a supposed crappy catcher.
• Contrary to what Chicago media will tell you, Kosuke Fukudome is actually human. He went 0-fer with 2 Ks and a walk, which came on 4 straight pitches in the second. Curtain call, anyone?
  
• The Crew scored 4 of their 8 runs with 2 outs, something that was almost impossible for them to do last season. I'll admit I thought there was going to be hell to pay when the bases were loaded with none out in the 7th and no one crossed home, but the pen did their job and kept the Cubs off balance.
• Derrick Turnbow is still MIA but so are Shouse and McClung. I don't necessarily see a problem with having relievers not throwing, but if there is a typical DBow situation tomorrow and you don't see him, then the issue gets a bit more interesting.

The 7:05p East Coast games just started on MLB Extra Innings...time to get my 'free preview' on.