Banedon

0-4, you friggin genius. I mean hoestly, let's face it, Dusty Baker ruined Matt Murton. I sincerely hope thats sarcasm.....Please let that be sarcasm. Actually, I agree. Dusty preached "aggressiveness" in the batters box, and Murton gradually began swinging at the first pitch. Dusty caused him to regress, but how can you say he's ruined with the year he had last year? I thought you were disagreeing about Dusty's impact. You're right, he's not "ruined", but he's having trouble getting back to his patient self, that's for sure.

0-4, you friggin genius. I mean hoestly, let's face it, Dusty Baker ruined Matt Murton. I sincerely hope thats sarcasm.....Please let that be sarcasm. Actually, I agree. Dusty preached "aggressiveness" in the batters box, and Murton gradually began swinging at the first pitch.

Yep...I just posted the same rule above.

Rule 6.08 ...If, in advancing, the base runner thinks there is a play and he slides past the base before or after touching it he may be put out by the fielder tagging him. If he fails to touch the base to which he is entitled and attempts to advance beyond that base he may be put out by tagging him or the base he missed....

I would love to see the rule on that.

Yeah, Cotts, Wuertz, Guzman, Dempster...they've all sucked hard huh? Cubs are 9th overall in bullpen ERA.

Going into today, Looper has an ERA+ of 160.

There's a Cardinal message board somewhere and everyone is whining that they can't hit freaking Lilly!

It's not like Looper has been getting shelled by other teams and is only pitching well against the Cubs here...

Lilly struck out Zambrano? No he's the . Hey man. Language. Board guidelines are in my sig if you need to review.

Email the booth and ask if that's the case. :D

I don't watch a ton of Cardinals games, but I know that I haven't seen Pujols in a slump like this probably....ever. It's starting to affect him defensively too. He missed several catches last night...some tough some not. And one was just a super easy catch he just flat out dropped. I'm not trying to dig on the guy...I just thought the slump was getting significant enough for it's own thread.

Boy isn't this the truth. He's gotta get the Dusty out of the baserunning, the Dusty out of Murton, the Dusty out of Zambrano (walks..ugh), and the Dusty out of the fan's mindset. That's a lot of work to do.... Now who's gonna get the Hendry out of this team?

I'm already sick of hearing about him though...BBTN was A-rod tonight.

That would be amazing. It would also represent a complete transfer of power in the East, something that usually doesn't happen in only one season. I find it unlikely, but hey -- here's hoping it happens. Hasn't it been happening over last season and this season though? The Bulls couldn't quite get over Miami last year, and then maybe they do this year? The momentum getting them past Detroit?

I'll take the over. I think the Bulls win the East, lose in the Finals.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and admittedly I might be, but won't it actually be harder to find receivers with the shotgun? Doesn't the shotgun take away a large part of the run threat?

Showing it only encourages those that have some deranged message they want to get out there to do things this way.

Just to nitpick this one part, I'm not sure how shotgun remedies this. The shotgun snap is something that would be a far more difficult snap to handle. It'd be like someone having trouble driving an automatic, so we put them in a stick shift instead... I'm speaking strictly as far as handling the snap here... I'm not really sure that's true. Is it easier to catch a ball tossed to you or to complete a Center/QB exchange? To be honest, I'm not sure. Most of his fumbles in the QB/Center exchange seem to be timing issues and not "grasping the ball" issues. He either pulls away too early, or the ball hits has hands and he closes them late. I don't think shotgun snaps would be hard to handle unless they are bad. Admittidly, that was kind of a reach. You wouldn't think taking a snap from center, a form of a handoff, would be difficult either, but for the sake of argument, maybe catching it is easier. The problem is that if Rex is too worried about the pass rush, or where his receivers are, and he looks up too early.... I'm not dead-set against the shotgun. I just don't think it's going to have much impact.

With a 9th inning bases loaded nobody out threat, only to hit into a triple play. The triple play shall unfold thusly: Matt Murton is on 3rd base, Derrek Lee on 2nd, and A-Ram on 1st. Jacque Jones at bat. Closer Bob Wickman uncorks a wild pitch to the back stop. Murton panics or a second before stumbling towards home, where he is tagged out by 10 feet. In the mean time, Lee attempts to take third and Ramirez second, but Lee gets caught in a run down, and both Derrek and Aramis end up standing on second, where Lee is tagged out. Thinking the ballgame is over, Ramirez starts trotting back to the dugout where he is tagged for the third out. After this play, NSBB posters will blame Jacque for the loss This is just silly.... I'll blame Dusty.

Zambrano's been better, but it's only by a slight margin. Zambrano's ERA+ is 50 Miller's ERA+ is 43 OUCH By comparison: Hill: 608 :shock: Lilly: 165 Marquis: 148 LOL @ Hill. I know it's early but that's crazy.

Introducing another arm angle to Theriot at this point in absolutely the wrong thing to do. Theriot will never be a long term answer at SS. He could be at 2nd. He should starting every day at 2nd. Izturis is the best defensive infielder on this team. He is twice the infielder that AGon or Neifi were. He has also had some nice at bats. He wasnt crisp on a play and you all freak out? His arm looks fine to me, and he has made some great plays. He doesnt strike out, and he has shown he can move runners. Izzy's O is more then passable in the 8th slot of a powerful lineup. Dero is the guy that should be relegated to spot duty or flat out moved. I have no idea why we picked him up in the first place. I had a feeling we were getting Blausered. We have seen 10% of his career HRs in 2% of his career ABs. I doubt that trend continues. He has had some terrible ABs, and booted an easy play at the duece. Izzy isnt going to bring much in the batters box, other then hopefully hit patiently, not K, and move runners. In this lineup, he shouldnt have to do anything more. We have a lot of bats. If we move Theriot to SS, everything he does offensively is marginalized by weak defense and him not learning a position. Im hoping for a lot more out of RT then Freel Redux. Moving him around is not helping his development. Im looking for him to grow into an Utley type and be a big part of this franchise's success. Welcom to the forum!

Just to nitpick this one part, I'm not sure how shotgun remedies this. The shotgun snap is something that would be a far more difficult snap to handle. It'd be like someone having trouble driving an automatic, so we put them in a stick shift instead... I'm speaking strictly as far as handling the snap here...

I've seen a lot more than one game where his reputation didn't really hold up. Blowing a routine play yesterday that would have ended the inning comes to mind. 3 error game. Um..that doesn't exactly help with the lot more than 1 game comment, because that was the one game they were talking about. Izturis has been pretty good defensively other than that 1 game, but not great. I'm actually not sure why that is-he showed a stronger arm in the limited time he was here in August than he's showed so far this year. That limit on the arm caused a play like last night, where with his previous arm he had plenty of time, and now he doesn't (although as I said in another thread, the runner was still out, but Izturis shouldn't have made it that close). If he can get back to the arm he had in August, he'll be fine-I just don't know if he can get back to that or not. I missed the "other than 1 game" comment in this thread. In the other thread we were judging Theriot on being unable to be "clutch" last night as a reason for him to not be an option to play SS, so I was using that 1 game against Izzy.

I've seen a lot more than one game where his reputation didn't really hold up. Blowing a routine play yesterday that would have ended the inning comes to mind. 3 error game.