Jon

Woo, Aramis! Boy am I mad I lost an auction for today's game at the last second.

Lee's flyout, Burnitz's double, and Wood's double all would have been out on a normal July day. Of course, if that wind wasn't blowing in, it would feel about 10 degrees warmer.

Z sure loves his futbol. He also has mad hops.

He's the pitching equivelant of Corey Patterson *ducks* (only kidding...) no he isn't he's white. No way will Chicago turn on him like it has our players the past 4 years. Are you implying Cubs fans are racist? kinda makes one wonder. Alf Sosa Hawkins Patterson but as pointed out Hundley got it bad. That may not be the best accusation to make in this thread.

Kerry! Make that 3 Cubs HRs that the wind has taken away.

With normal wind, the game would be 2-2 right now.

It's blowing in from center at 10 mph, just like yesterday.

Except that we know from experience that Murton won't play against all left-handers, because we need to keep Hollandsworth fresh. Just like Neifi needed to be kept fresh. And whatever other veteran who was under pressure from a rookie. Unless Murton plays the majority of the time, this will likely be a terrible decision by Hendry. Yeah, I think the Trib was being a little too optimistic. Muskat used the same quote and framed it this way:

With it everywhere else on the board, Corey bashing won't be tolerated in the minor league forum. With that said, that's enough of the personal stuff. Now, to get back on topic, the main thing I want to see out of Corey right now is hits. I don't think that he can begin to really work on his command of the zone until he starts to make consistently solid contact with the shorter swing he's working on.

Bartosh gives up a couple of unearned runs on a walk and 2 singles after a 2-out error. Doobie struck out in his 4th AB.

Corey struck out on a 1-2 pitch in his 4th AB. He was the third strikeout of the inning.

Wellemeyer is doing well, especially after his 22-pitch first inning, but he seems to be giving up a lot more fly balls tonight than usual (including plenty on or near the track). He has a shutout through 6, though, on 4 hits, 2 walks, and 4 strikeouts. 7-0 I-Cubs.

In his third AB, Dooby singled sharply to left. I made a mistake on his 2nd AB. I thought Kelton had singled and Dubois grounded into the FC. It was the other way around. Dubois is 3-3.

Ransom's RBI triple makes it a 4-0 I-Cubs lead. Should I stop hoping for Cody to be promoted so Cedeno can return to Iowa and actually play? With Nomar's timetable, there's just about no chance that he gets more playing time. I'd be much more comfortable with Ransom doing nothing than Ronny. Corey grounded out to third on the 2nd pitch in his 3rd AB.

Keep it up, Luis. It'll be interesting to see what he can do. By the way, does the timing of the move have anything to do with Bacon's groin injury?

Dooby grounds into a 6-4 FC early in the count after a Kelton single.

Bye bye. Bye bye, baseball! Corey crushes a 1-1 pitch (took a strike and then took a ball) off the scoreboard in right center!

I'm not sure about street price. For whatever reason, after releasing a ton of great seats for today's game, they haven't released any for the Friday and Saturday games. I'm hoping that changes, though. Kids 2 and under don't need a ticket, so unless you think she can pass for 1 or 2, she will need one. SRO tickets are sold when the box office opens the morning of the game. I don't know how you could manage that with a 4-year-old, though. By the way, it's obviously too late now, but they even released dugout and bullpen seats this morning for today's game.

There are good seats available for Thursday's game, including singles a few rows behind home plate, Field Box doubles (and maybe more) behind home plate, and bleacher seats. Thursday is a regular date, so the tickets won't cost as much as the average game in July.

His swing is a little bit shorter this year, but what you see on the field is the combination of the coaches trying to get him from the beginning of the year to spray the ball to all fields and focus more on putting the ball in play and his inability/ineffectiveness of becoming that kind of a hitter. Corey will hit for power and he will continue to do so because he's had success with it. It's unrealistic to expect the guy to go from a power/strikeout hitter to an OBP leadoff guy simply because he's short (but not small) and fast. Instead of working with what Corey was already used to doing in the batter's box to lower the strikeouts, the coaches went a step further back and tried to change both plate discipline and his swing at the same time. That's just too much. Couple that with the struggles that Patterson has had in just picking up the ball and you have what we've seen from April through June. As for the bunting, he tried bunting more often last year, but he wasn't getting them down/beating them out at a rate that would make it a useful weapon. He started to push them down the first base line again recently, but he still has a lot of work to do on that before he becomes an effective bunter. If the Cubs wanted to mold Corey into a leadoff hitter, they should have done so in the minors. If you take every player with the ceiling Corey has/had and four or five years of big league experience and try to turn them from one type of hitter to another, you're not going to have the success that you'd want. Why bother insulting Corey's ability when talking about Pie? I wasn't saying that Felix doesn't have what you say he has, but to continue to say that Patterson isn't coachable still makes no sense to me. After Corey wasn't given the full opportunity to improve on plate discipline in the minors, I don't see why the same organization would put Felix on that same path. He may very well succeed, but at 20 years of age and where he currently is as a player, I don't see that as a risk worth taking. It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the big league club considering the OBP that Hairston is putting up in the leadoff spot or the OBP that Greenberg could put up.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050712/capt.midp11807120017.mlb_all_star_midp118.jpg This pic doesn't do the baby justice, but still adorable.

I just put up with 30 minutes of it on ESPN2 to get a glimpse of A-Ram's kid. It wasn't a closeup, but I must say that he was one of the most adorable babies I've ever seen. Anyone have a guess on how old he was?

5 RBIs? That's not too shabby. The Diamond Jaxx head into the break with a 2-1 loss. Craig's solo HR was their lone score.

Neither Patterson nor Dubois played for the Mesa Cubs today.

I don't really get that. Why does Corey have to be a leadoff hitter simply because he's 5'10'' and fast if that's not where his talen with the bat lies? And I'd like to see where a coach has said that Corey isn't coachable. Gene Clines (1 of 3 active coaches he had at the big league level) said that he's quite coachable as recently as three weeks ago and he worked extra time to convert his batting approach late last season, this offseason, this spring, and this season up until now. Just because something doesn't work out doesn't mean it's because he's stubborn. In my opinion, it's what they were trying to make him that was the problem. Four of five seasons in the majors isn't the best time to all of a sudden turn Patterson into a slappy leadoff hitter. And I don't know if it's realistic to expect Pie to be flexible and adapt IN the big leagues as a leadoff hitter. Pie had 16 walks in 240 ABs this year. He won't just start to take walks in the majors. Vince Coleman has been working very hard with Felix on his base stealing and yet he's just 13 for 22. He won't just start stealing bases effectively in the majors. We might very well see fewer walks and less success on the bases. Unless they call up Pie and he bats .320 or so, he is NOT going to be a decent leadoff option right now.