TruffleShuffle

delmon young, steve howe.

well the pens are the "local" team and the NHL is going to promote pitt-philly pretty hard, so i should be able to watch every game as the flyers lose the series.

they could both shoot low scores on the back 9. 12 and 15 are both eagle opportunities if you hit your drive right; 16 they usually put the pin in a spot that gets the ball rolling down toward it. i can definitely see either one of them shooting 30-31 on the back 9 if they're on, but they have to go out in something like 3 under par to have a chance.

Don't the Brewers do this? Didn't Weeks throw his helmet down in front of the umpire and Koyie Hill possibly having bounce up and hit one of them when they won yesterday? well hill spiked the ball down, couldn't that have bounced up and hit someone too?

what should happen and what will happen can be different things. the cards have a history of outperforming expectations (see 2008). if rasmus establishes himself as a good player this year, glaus can come back and be healthy for much of the year and ludwick/ankiel prove that last year was not a fluke, they can have a good offense. if carpenter and wainwright stay healthy i think their pitching will be pretty solid too. that being said, the cubs should be better even if those things happen. if the cubs underperform it will likely be due to injuries to harden/zambrano/marshall/bradley. the cubs are a clear favorite, but i can see the cards winning 90 games without having to make unrealistic assumptions.

I wrote them off before the season started. Is that ok? So between them and the Cards, you think the Cubs are just going to coast to an easy division title, without question? Yeah, really smart. Last year the Cards and the Brewers were really good and the Cubs coasted. Yeah, the Cubs aren't as good as last year (most likely) but neither are the Cards and the Brewers. why aren't the cards as good as last year?

cbs got its dream pairing of tiger and phil on sunday. unfortunately they're both 7 back.

yeah heilman threw pretty well, gave up a hard single through the middle that scored 2, but struck out 3 guys. guzman and cotts' walks meant he was coming in in a tough spot. if he pitches like he did from 2005-07 he's a good reliever and certainly a guy who can pitch in close games in the 7th/8th. if he pitches like he did last year then he's pretty worthless. considering the makeup of the cubs' pen right now, i think they just have to assume that heilman is "good" again unless he proves otherwise.

i suppose he could be. at one point in his career he was pretty good, but he hasn't been on the mound much the last 3 years and i can't really say much about what kind of stuff he has. he's probably a guy who's best to leave at iowa for a month or two and see how his arm holds up and what kind of velocity he has.

thanks guys. he didn't make the top 30 BA prospects, but was mentioned as a sleeper - all they said was "used his plus fastball/curve combo to dominate in his pro debut." sickels ranked him 13th and said "Lots of strikeouts and grounders at Boise. Command an issue. Could rank as high as 10th." anyway, if he has nice velocity and sink on his fastball and also a solid breaking pitch, i'm glad they've got him in the rotation and will hopefully have him working on his change. sounds like a good guy to throw a little extra money at. i'll keep an eye on him.

sure was.

i left him out because he sucked at iowa and with the big club last year, and didn't have a good spring training.

i'm gonna need some audio for this one.

9th inning homer to take the lead and struck out their two best hitters to end the game. i <3 baseball (for now)

just because they end up in the middle of the plate doesn't mean they're easy to hit.

hey ump you missed a good one on 1-0.

we all do, jim. we all do.

get this uggo out

sweet, len called them "dusty baker's reds"

right now marmol seems to be the only reliable reliever, but it's really not going to be good for the club in the long run if you end up pitching him every game because everyone else sucks. gotta hope that: 1. angel develops confidence in his stuff - it's good enough to get hitters out at this level - starts throwing strikes to big league hitters rather than nibbling like he did against hart and braun. 2. heilman is a good, reliable bullpen arm rather than the poor pitcher he was last season. 3. a decent lefthanded starter can be acquired from a team that knows it's going nowhere. cotts isn't good, doesn't have good control and really isn't better against LH than RH batters. possible options: -joe beimel, from the nationals. -san diego doesn't have much LHP help, but cla meredith and duaner sanchez could be useful additions. -jamie walker, from the orioles, is overpaid and was a disaster last season, but had been consistently good before that. is he worth the risk? the o's also have danys baez, but he's pretty much not good. -the blue jays have 3 LH relievers right now, including scott downs, who's been really good the last two years. jesse carlson also had a nice year last year. ricciardi is notorious for demanding a lot in the trade market, however. 4. vizcaino can be serviceable against RH batters. his 3-year splits (.217/.305/.379/.683) suggest he's a pretty good option against RH's, but should never ever be allowed to face a LH batter with any sort of power. he actually can be useful in a ROOGY role, provided that the manager uses him properly. 5. gregg throws enough strikes to at least be an adequate closer - the cubs should be good enough to get by with an average closer. 6. patton needs to be able to contribute to some degree in close games. the cubs should be one of the better teams in baseball; teams with aspirations of winning a championship really don't have room on the roster for your classic rule five guy who sits around and does mop up duty when games are out of hand. the exception would be if you have a johan santana-type of rule five pick, but patton just doesn't have that high of a ceiling. If patton can't be a real contributor, then pitch him back to the Rockies and get someone who can. 7. Find a guy from Iowa who can help. Ideally, we could keep Samardzija down there to work on his secondary pitches; with the rotation we have it's important to keep the option of a 6th starter on layaway. Hart and Wells are possibilities; Esmailin Caridad could be a sleeper.

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i guess theriot was thinking that coffey was pounding the zone, which was true, but it would've been nice to see him let the first one go if it wasn't middle-in.

way to battle, mike

coffey shoud spend more time running like that, maybe he wouldn't be such a chubbo.

hey you know what would be awesome? if some of these home runs and extra base hits would come when the cubs have runners on base.