What's wrong with Carlos Zambrano?

[reenum]

He just hasn't had it for the last month at all. He has 1 win, a 5.06 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP. Is this a result of Dusty Baker overusing him, and do you guys think this decline in his stats will persist?

[slomo007]

He's just way too emotinal. He obviously has the talent, but his emotions pitch him into trouble. He is NOT a top tier pitcher as many think until he can control those emotions.

[Music2004Man]

My thought is that he hasn't quite reached his peak though I think he could be a great fantasy pitcher for years to come. I really feel like I want to start avoiding cubs pitchers. Baker pitches their arms off. It seems too coincidental that they keep getting hurt.

[warrick95]

The high pitch counts are a bit concerning, but the emotion's gotta play some sort of role. Score a run on him and the floodgates (and mouth) will open. I didn't expect him to keep up the sub-3 ERA all season, anyway, so it's not much of a surprise here.

[ocmusicjunkie]

That IS the question of the day: what's wrong with Zambrano

[biju]

He just hasn't had it for the last month at all. He has 1 win, a 5.06 ERA and a 1.56 WHIP. Is this a result of Dusty Baker overusing him, and do you guys think this decline in his stats will persist?

This guy is consistently overrated by the people here at the café. He's got Carl Pavano numbers with .289 more K/IP but you don't hear everyone talking about Pavano at all.

There's nothing really "wrong" with him. He's young and will get tired (especially under Dusty Baker). I'd give him two more years and hopefully a different manager before I started to rank him in the elite group many people have him in.

[AcidRock23]

I think that Dusty needs to yank him IMMEDIATELY when he is getting torched and does the yelling at himself on the mound crap. He is getting paid a lot of money to play baseball, not jump up and down like a 5 year old...

[blankman]

His problem is that he needs to grow up and learn to control his emotions. There was a good article on the Edmonds incident on ESPN.com Page 2 that explained this.

[AcidRock23]

That is certainly true. I think that at this point, the coach needs to intervene more actively. Sure, after the first Edmonds histrionics, he got his stuff together for a while, K'ed Edmonds on 3 blazing pitches and also K'ed Pujols. Unfortunately, he let his mind wander AFTER K'ing Pujols and served up a nice BP pitch to Rolen and then got pissy and plunked Edmonds. The 'problem', which seemed to have something to do w/ Edmonds for whatever reason, was not that he hit Edmonds, but that lost it basking in the warm glow of sitting Big Al down. Also, Baker kind of wrote it off afterwards and I think he needed to say something a bit stronger like 'we can't let our emotions blow games for us'.

Zambrano was doing goofy crap yesterday, after giving up the GWRBI to THE PITCHER. I can understand you are upset but you need to stop the crouching and hitting the dirt w/ your damn glove. If you can't do it yourself, have some Prozac or scotch or whatever and shut the hell up.

Looking at the Zambrano incident, compared w/ the Arod/ Vtek incident, Edmonds got plunked TWICE and didn't bat a freaking eyelash. I detest the Cardinals but have to tip my (Cubs) hat to him for handling it that way. After the second time, he probably could have worked a bat upside of Z's head and didn't. That is smart, effective baseball and will carry St. Louis a LONG way.

His problem is that he needs to grow up and learn to control his emotions.

[CubsFan7724]

Give him 2 years to calm down a bit. Kerry Wood used to sort of be like him, and would get pretty angry on the mound. And well, Kerry Wood has been sort of good. Baker shouldn't have condoned the incident and told Zambrano it was wrong to do such a thing. Im really thinking Dusty is the most overrated manager in baseball.


Edit: Wow am I dumb. Was talking bout pitching and then instead of manager put pitching. Note to self: proofread posts before you make an idiot of your self.