Injuries

A quote from Baker also stolen from the Cub Reporter reader 'MannyTrillo':

"This has been the worst year of injuries I've had as a manager," Baker said Tuesday. "As soon as you get whole, another part goes down.

"I don't appreciate people getting on this team so much about different things, small things, because of the amount of injuries we've had and we've had to overcome a lot," Baker said. "People say, 'How come you're not in first place like the Cardinals?' They haven't had the injuries we had this year and we didn't have the injuries they had last year.

"When the year starts, they ask, 'What do you want out of the year?' and you say good health and everybody laughs at you. Good health is something we take for granted but it's real. I've always said if I can keep my first team on the field more than yours, we're going to beat you. Where we are right now, even though we're not where we want to be, we've done it short most of the year."
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Look I hate excuses more than the next guy, but I really think the Cubs are in this predicament mostly cause of injuries. And yes they got most of their guys back by what July, but it's not that easy, it takes awhile to get going sometimes and the nagging injuries on top of that haven't helped the cause and they've barely been whole for any reasonable length of time.
Here's a list:

Cubs 2004 Injuries (60 denotes 60 day DL, * is what I consider a key injury, all info from cubs.com)
Remlinger x2
*Grudzielanek (60)
*Prior (60)
Macias
Goodwin
Wellemeyer
*Wood
*Sosa
*Gonzalez(60)
*Borowski(60)
Mercker
*Hollandsworth(60)

Cubs 2003 Injuries (60 denotes 60 day DL, * is what I consider a key injury, all info from cubs.com)
Chiasson(60)
Alfonseca
Ohman
Veres x2
*Sosa
Guthrie
*Choi
Goodwin
*Prior
*Patterson(60)
*Grudzielanek

That's 7 key injuries to 4, not to mention a lot more time lost. Some will argue with the Gonzalez and Borowski as key injuries. Here's my take, Gonzalez did suck, but you couldn't trade him until he got healthy and the replacement that were in there were even worse than him, Borowski has been good the last 2 years and I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm betting the reason he sucked this year is cause of what ailed him and he refused to let anyone know or just tried to suck it up. For reference Cardinal injuries:

2004 Injuries
Rick Ankiel
R. Cedeno
M. Lincoln
*Matheny
Lankford
*S. Kline
K. Calero

2003 Injuries
L. Painter
*J.D. Drew x2
Girardi(60)
*Isringhausen(60)
Stechschulte
*Vina
*E. Marrero
R. Springer
K. Calero
C. Widger
*M. Morris

Not a meaningful injury to the Cards all year to be honest, Matheny is good defensively but that's about it and S. Kline is a reliever.

I'm going to go listen to the game....hopefully the brooms will be out.