Jon

Bah. Barely any decent contact in that inning.

Jones-esque throw right there. And that play shouldn't have been all that close.

Wow. What the heck was that?

Looked safe. Are we going to have to put up with 3x as many crowd shots in this series?

Great bench you got there, Hendry. The only guys not playing are Theriot (never going to start...ever), Bynum (sucks), Mabry (lefty), and Jones (lefty). Yup, no need for a decent right-handed bat...

Well, at least today, the DH is probably the difference between Barrett playing and not playing. Or he won't play and Ramirez will DH with Neifi at third...

I really had no idea that people could berate the Tribune writers. Wish I had known this sooner.

Angel's final line: 7 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 7 K, 90 pitches 7 of the 8 hits were singles. He had 6 groundouts to 8 flyouts. Montanez PH for Guzman and grounded out. Pie will likely finish 2-4 with 3 RBIs, 2 runs scored, a walk, and a strikeout.

Pie with a 2-run bomb! #5 on the year, I-Cubs lead 6-2. That was Felix's 3rd 2-out RBI of the night. He took the first pitch and crushed it to right-center.

2-run triple for Fresno. Guzman's line so far: 5 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 5 K, 72 pitches-46 strikes

2 infield singles and a strikeout, but no runs against Guzman. I-Cubs still up 3-0.

Yeesh. At least he made it. Thanks for the update. Pie is 1-2 with an RBI single. Guzman's line so far: 3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K, 40 pitches

The Cubs' OPS against lefties is .549, good for dead last in the NL...by .123.

I don't understand how this is pushing him faster than Wood. both threw 45 pitches at a time for a month in various scenerios (bullpen, batting practice, sim games, etc). Kerry with 2 starts in AZ, the plan with Mark apparently is 1. then 2 rehab starts for Kerry, and the plan for Prior is 2 rehab starts. its the same thing, sans one AZ start, and Prior isn't recovering from surgery. a week ago we argued that it wouldn't be possible for Wood to get his pitch count up in 2 rehab starts, and you were right. why do you not have the confidence that Prior can do the same thing? I believe they lowered Kerry's pitch count from the last simulated game to his first game against rookies, then raised it in his second. That won't really happen with Prior. It's not really an issue of the injury for me, but if there was question about his arm strength (still able to throw the pitches but not with as much velocity as you'd expect) lagging behind a little bit, why not give him 2 and 2 in a competitive situation? Of course, that may very well happen, but that was in regards to previous speculation that he'd only do 1 and 2. May not be a big deal, but if you've come this far and he's nearly ready, I'd personally like to see another start in there. Maybe not so much as to build up his pitch count, but just to make sure his arm strength is there. If he makes good progress in this start, then great.

What was Sing's BABIP? In any case, his walk rate was fine even though his power numbers were not great and he wasn't hitting for avg. As of Monday, .220. It was .267 against lefties and .205 against righties, even though his BA against each were nearly identical.

Forecast: Gametime temps around 60 degrees, partly cloudy, and an increasing wind (13-20 mph) blowing from left-to-right.

Guillen strained his right hamstring tonight and probably won't play tomorrow.

Marshall is already half-way through his IP total of last year. And in 2004, he only threw 77.2 IP. And since he's only 23, there isn't much of a reason to push him. I think even if he gets sent down, his confidence should be sky high.

If Prior and Wood stay healthy, what becomes of Sean Marshall when Miller is ready? I guess they did demote Murton last year when he was killing the ball so i doubt they'd have a problem sending Sean to AAA. They probably haven't decided that yet. I wouldn't mind Marshall spending most of the year in the minors if Miller is going to produce around the same level, but I'm going to guess and say that they give Miller a little more time down on a rehab assignment, giving them more time to figure out what they want to do.

Exactly. They hired a guy that by all accounts was a fantastic candidate for the job and gave him plenty of resources to do the job right. It wasn't until the past couple years that his style proved to be a problem for further improvement of the team. Going forward, I would hope the Tribune would put greater pressure on Andy to win more games. But up until very recently I'm not sure there's much of a legitimate gripe about how they've let Andy do his job. so they brought in MacPhail, yet they take little blame when he's supposedly failing?? quite frankly i don't understand such logic. i guess if they take no blame for MacPhail, then hendry takes no blame for baker. hendry doesn't manage the team, and baker had a really good win percentage when he was hired. perhaps a long standing defence of the trib is starting to fall apart? Well, for one, he's not failing by much. And you can't compare the Trib keeping MacPhail with MacPhail keeping Hendry or Hendry keeping Baker. The Tribune Co. hired MacPhail because they didn't have the people who knew baseball and knew how to run an organization. The term of a president of a team should be significantly longer than a GM or manager because they're being judged by owners, who really only can look at long term results. If they're not up to standard, the president will eventually be replaced. Presidents, and especially ones like MacPhail, know what the GM is doing and have more knowledge to evaluate a GM. They don't get as long of a leash as a president, though. Likewise, a GM has even more ability to evaluate a manager, but usually has an even shorter fuse with managers. And considering Dusty's incompetency has been far more obvious than even Hendry's shortcomings, I don't see how it's a fair comparison.

According to Cubs.com, Miller will throw to rookies in Mesa on Monday, so hopefully he'll be ready to go around mid-June.

Pretty much. There's a small chance for a brief delay later on, but the radar looks fine.

Walks haven't been Aramis' problem this year. He's on a pretty good pace. But didn't he take a strike to make it a 1-1 count before hitting the 1-2 pitch to the wall? I don't know if the third pitch was in the zone, but it didn't really sound like he did anything wrong in that AB.

Bah. Almost.