AlwaysaCub

He was good about his mechanics most of the time...the two times he seemed to revert where after the Green double and the Green homer. So I think when he gets angry, he loses himself, but we knew that. So the onus is on the catcher to keep him calm this season.

Lou does not trust the bullpen. :lol: And neither did Dusty in 2003, so he blew out Prior's arm...how is that good?

Z seems to be remembering that he is, in fact, Carlos Zambrano, and is a pretty decent pitcher.

there's the obligatory "bitching every time someone doesn't get a run in from 3rd with less than two outs" More like the obligatory "Jones does not understanding the current situation of the game" because he grounded out? If it were easy to hit a deep fly or get a hit every at bat, I'm sure he would just do that all the time. Somehow it's acceptable to ground out or strike out with the bases empty, but if you do those things with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs, then you "don't understand the current situation of the game." He also is great at turning singles into doubles, as just witnessed. It wasn't Jacque's fault. He couldn't make a great catch and Reyes was safe easily at second without a perfect throw. If there is a single up the middle directly at the CF, the runner should not make 2B. Normally I would agree, but Jones dove and the ball rolled around enough for one of the fastest guys in the game to reach second. It was not Jacques fault. I normally would agree with you, that Jaque deserves the benefit of the doubt given that Reyes was running. But after that throw...Jaque lost all credibility.

That throw was a thing of beauty.

Those guns are off tonight. It said Main was pitching high 80's. Well, it was that gun that had him at 94. And now it has him at 89.

Zambrano just reverted to suck edition after that double. He was at 94 and is now at 89.

Very encouraging first inning all around. Our pitcher throws strikes, we draw some walks, we have the lead. LET'S GO CUBS

Bruce, we've heard just a few games off for DLee b/c of his neck. Is that what you've heard also?

Friday Mr. Wendell Kim must have mugged Quade and used one of those Mission Impossible masks to impersonate him. He's probably also on stilts.

I would say that his complete and absolute inability to hit lefties qualifies as something wrong.

I definitely agree that Rothschild deserves kudos for Marquis' performance, even if all he gave to Marquis was confidence. That said, part of me still believes that the other shoe will drop, be it from more homers on those warm summer days or whatever. But I firmly believed he was unnecessary and therefore a bad signing through spring training. On this count I was very wrong as Marquis has pitched brilliantly, especially when we've needed him most. Here's to his keeping it up. PS I didn't realize how much of a New Yorker Marquis is. Apparently he's from Staten Island, and you can really tell.

Theriot should lead off instead of Murton. At the moment he has more patience and is hitting better.

If Demp is going to get 4 outs here, then who is closing in the second game if it's close? I hope it's not the Eyre experience.

after this half inning I'd rather it happen now, but if you say so don't they have to play the bottom half to make it official? I thought it was just 5 complete innings for an official game? Yes, but if losing, doesn't the home team need one last AB? Yes, I believe we can actually lose now if they call it. Since they can expunge our last half inning. I think this is exactly the situation that they altered in the rules over the winter. Isn't this where they would suspend the game and restart from this point tomorrow before the 2nd game?

If we send Cedeno down, we have 1 infielder on the bench who sometimes plays outfield anyway and cannot play short. Cedeno may suck, but we have to have someone in his roll.

The last time a White Sock pitched a no hitter, Sosa was on their team. So I guess he's been involved in the last two White Sox no hitters. PS its hilarious that he would manage a walk, and then get picked off.

Here me out. I've thought this for a while, but now seems like an appropriate time to put this out there. 1. Zambrano has a lot of mileage on his arm, and it occurred when he was still young. Of all the All-Star pitches, Zambrano is the least economical with his pitches and therefore puts the most stress on his arm going as deep into games as he does. Conventional wisdom is that that is when pitchers are most vulnerable to regressing from being over pitched. I'm not saying he is injured, but if his first four starts are any indication, he's gone the Mark Prior route. I know that it's a small sample size and I know he sucked last April, but he didn't suck this horribly. 2. That said, his stock is still astronomical at the moment. However, if we keep him and he continues pitching like he has, it will crash and burn. 3. Depending on the ownership situation, we may not be able to resign him anyway. 4. We can get a huge return for him, like Ervin Santana and Brandon Wood perhaps (although that proposal specifically is a pipe dream I know). 5. Yes, trading him would get Jim Hendry murdered in the press. Yes, Hendry doesn't have those kind of balls. But chances are Hendy won't survive the sale anyway, so he has nothing to lose. 6. As Branch Rickey said, it's better to get rid of a guy a year early than a year late. Have at it.

Wuertz threw 11 pitches yesterday. Ohman and Howry each threw 9. The bullpen hasn't been "burned." There's no need to bring someone up for that reason. where are you getting your pitch counts? Wuertz threw 35, Ohman threw 22 and Howry threw 21 according to the mlb.com box score. It would have been remarkable if Wuertz got 6 outs with 9 pitches. The only person who didn't have to exert himself was Scott Eyre. Everyone else had a pitch count over 20, which for a reliever is significant. Yes, some people are going to have to take one for the team, but we could avoid that situation and call someone up.

We burned our pen yesterday. Will Ohman sucks. Zambrano has not gone deep in his first three outtings. Bottom line, we need a new pitcher in the pen for today's game. Why haven't the Cubs made some sort of move?

Bench isn't empty. Zambrano, Hill, and Lilly haven't played yet.

Ok, who pitches next?

In the NLCS, both El Duque and Pedro, who were with them for most of the year, were out with injuries. The Cards didn't have Mark Mulder, who had sucked for them, and replaced him with Jeff Weaver, who, at least for the Cards, pitched much better last year.

Jaque Jones Sunday in the 6th inning, when we had men at the corners with none down, was infinitely worse. Specifically his swing on the 0-2 pitch.

I think Mr. Howry's right arm is suffering from DustyBakeritis, and perhaps will be for the rest of the year.