Joe Torre is Sweet Lou's "Daddy"

If the Yankees are Pedro's "daddy", then Joe Torre can be called Lou Pinella's "padre." That's Italian and Espanol by the way. He literally is.

The fear of many Cubs fans I spoke to entering this series, wasn't fear of the Dodgers' hitting or their young pitching, but the match-up in the dugout. The match-up where Joe Torre has beaten Lou Pinella in handily. Many fans don't even look at trends such as how the manager does against the other. They just look at the lineup, pitching and blurt out: "We're better." Not so fast.

Now, Lou is a certified Hall of Famer. He was a solid ballplayer, managed the Reds to an unpredictable World Series title, and had successful regular seasons' in Seattle and Chicago. Notice I said "regular season." Ever since the 1990 upset win over the Oakland Athletics, Lou hasn't been able to get his team over the hump. He just hasn't.

Now, he's been a great manager in between his arrival in Seattle and his new job in Chi Town. He led the Mariners to 7 playoff appearances. The Mariners have only been to the playoffs 2 times aside from the Lou era. So we could say that he's the best manager in Mariners history.

But the one thing that always stood in the way of Pinella and his best teams' hopes for a championship has been Joe Torre. Every...single...year. He even came from the AL to haunt him in the NL. Thanks alot Hank.

I'm starting to think Joe secretly takes pleasure in torturing his dear friend. Remember the 2000 playoffs? The ALCS? That was the year Clemens threw that 15k, 5-0, 1 hit complete game shut-out. It was quieter than Chad Johnson in Dallas yesterday in Safeco.

Then came 2001. The Mariners won 116 games. Kudos to Lou on that. They then went down 2-0 to open the ALCS to the Yankees. Doom and gloom was on the face of all Seattle-ans. Is that what you would call them...Seattle-ans? Whatever. After losing the first 2, Lou came out of nowhere and said they'd go to Yankee Stadium and win 2 out of the next 3 games and take the series back to Seattle. He was right about someone winning the next 2 out of 3 and that wasn't Seattle, but the Yankees. They won the series in 5 games and sent Lou packing again.

After Seattle, Lou escaped to Tampa Bay and kept getting beat in the head by Torre. Of course, we can grant Pinella a pass as the Rays were atrocious at that point. But then Sweet Lou left for the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. He made the playoffs his first year and lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a first round sweep for the ages.

Lou entered the 2008 season with expectations to go much farther and the Cubs won the NL Central again. But let me take you to a few emails I got from friends who live in Chicago. One that follows the Cubs and one that follows the White Sox before the start of the Dodger series.

The 1st email:

"I can't wait to see the Dodgers destroy the Cubs. The Cubs are just like the Angels, they haven't played a meaningless game in months, and you'll watch how LA does like Colorado and steamrolls through everybody and makes us south-siders happy."

The 2nd email:

"They are a NL West team and they are coached by Joe Torre. Last time Lou faced both, he lost and badly. That gives me enough reason to fret."

Well, I guess both of them were right. The Cubs just looked tight as hell in this series. I'm not sure whether it was overconfidence or they just couldn't deal with the expectations. But, alot of people want to give Lou a pass for this series. Why? He's supposed to have his team ready to play. I know he can't control Soriano going 1 for 14 or Aramis leaving 19 players on base, but he could've sat them down. He could've blown up on his team or motivated them. What happened to that Lou? "We just have to play better." To me, that's not enough especially when your reputation shows that if I were to put money, after Game 1, you would've lit a fire under this team like you tore into TB all those losing years.

We saw it with Jones and Tarver. We saw it with Malone and Jordan. We saw it with Kelly and Aikman. Sometimes, someone just has your number. That's exactly what Joe Torre has. And we can't expect the Cubs to just win the division every year. The Reds have solid starting pitching, the Brewers are a force, and the Astros came on strong at the end. Next year, as much as you may not like to hear it, will be the beginning of the "Lou on the firing line" whispers arriving.

Check out my blog over at yoonewverse.com. Thanks fellas.