Brian

So, what is the scouting report on Wells, anyway? What's his second pitch, slider or curve? I'm think slider, but I'm not so sure... How fast is he? Is he still your standard 88-93 guy? He was something of a flyball guy last year; still true? For having his own diary thing and whatnot, and despite how good has stats have been, I've gotten very little scouting info on him. I was pretty interested in him back at Peoria (or was it Lansing?) two years ago. I recall two game reports, one said he was mostly 88-90 for velocity and didn't show anything very attention-getting; the other said he threw some 90-92. I seem to have some idea from Daytona getting a report of 89-93 for velocity, but other than a couple of references to what nice mechanics he had and how aggressive he was, I didn't get much else. I think he's got some sort of big time cutter or something that was reportedly shattering bats left and right in ST. There was a couple of articles on him on Cubs.com during ST about him impressing alot of people.

The teams that have real good records right now aren't doing it by "speed and defense". Mostly they're hittiing it out of the park. It's a combination of hitting it out of the park and drawing walks. I know there are people who don't buy much into walks being all that valuable, and they are welcome to their opinion. But, look at this amazing stat: Cubs pitchers so far in 2006 have held the opponent to a BAA of .243 Cubs opponents have a BAA against the Cubs of .252 The Cubs have amassed 22 more hits than the opponents at this point in the season. The Cubs have been outscored by 61 runs. Cub opponents have drawn 100 more walks than the Cubs. The combination of OBP and SLG is why the Cubs are near the bottom in nearly every offensive category. Cubs pitching has been quite dominant if the walk was excluded from the overall picture. Unfortunately, you can't just discount walks, because they are part of the game. I wish they had an easy way to figure out what percentage of players who draw a base on balls end up scoring per walk. Yes, AVG with RISP is an important stat as well, but is that stat any more important than team OBP? Would or could the AVG with RISP be better if there were more guys getting on base? my post was semi-sarcasting. After '04 he jumped on the chemistry bandwagon of the Red Sox, after '05 he jumped on the speed and defense bandwagon the White Sox were known for. So i'm thinking maybe he realizes now that with all of that you actually have to score runs!

The teams that have real good records right now aren't doing it by "speed and defense". Mostly they're hittiing it out of the park.

HE'S FAST AND HE CAN CATCH

I think we may have Joe Buck to thank for Phil Nevin. During the national Fox broadcast on Saturday Buck and Carver were talking about the Cubs struggles and Buck kind of took a dig at Hendry about not picking up a bat at first when Lee went down and the possibility that that showed his players that he didn't care or something to that nature. And then out of the blue in the next inning or soon thereafter Hendry showed up in the booth, was Jimmy listening and he didn't like what Joe had to say about him on national tv, he did address the situation by saying that he would have had to give up the farm to get a 1B bat and nobody trades that early etc. and now a couple of days later, hendry picks up 1B bat. :shock:

Great story :lol:

Matt Ciarmilla (I didn't look it up so I think I messed the last name up a bit) a current mid-A OF who is batting in the low .200s at the moment.

hate being right :x

got the right batters up, but i'm calling a 4-6 pitch 1-2-3 inning :(

at least the right guys will be up in the 9th Aram Walk Murt

time for a BARRETGASM or at least a BARRETSINGLE

OMGZ NEIFI IS CLUTCH~~~!!!!

Bynum - Pierre - Neifi = rally murderers

come on JP get a hit when it counts.

let "home run" Freddie bat

speed kills

Jacque has been so much better than most expected.

JACQUE!

MURTON!

AWESOME INNING.

http://cache.boston.com/images/daily/12/pedro_zimmer.jpg http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2004/11/17/1100706901_5904.jpg

Huh? Don Zimmer sung the stretch.

Novoa is terrible.

I believe they want to take out "Devil" and go with just Rays

Bob - "Griffey should bunt for a base hit" oops. p.s. game over :(