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Z looks to be going out there for the 7th as nobody is warming up.

I'm going to say legitimate injury. It's not like the Cubs were anxious to bring Blanco up for any reason. But Miles probably could have played through that injury longer if he needed to or was hot at the plate. Scales might have a chance to quickly come back up depending on what happens with Freel.

He squared around to bunt more than once. That pretty much means sacrifice. But he squared around during the pitch..and Theriot frequently fakes the bunt so the third baseman plays in anyway, so the surprise factor isn't as much with him. I think he was trying to bunt for a hit .

It looked to me like Theriot was doing the bunt like Fukudome does. You bunt and hope for a hit, but at the worst it's a sacrifice. But it was a pretty bad bunt.

Why did they make the change? Freel slid after he made the turn at 1st presumably to stop his momentum..and when he went back to 1st he was limping and grabbing his left leg.

With only one IF backup, if Freel needs to be out more than 2 days they probably will put him on the DL and call Scales right back up.

Close play on Lee. That was his first double play of the season.

So why didnt they just bring up Fox for Miles and leave the rest be? Blancos defense isnt anything to write home about. Blanco can play SS. Scales can't. Neither can Freel, and Fontenot only barely can (and the Cubs probably don't want him thinking about another new position right now). From the way Len described it, that's exactly what it was. The Cubs needed a backup SS with Miles gone so Blanco had to be the choice.

It doesn't sound like Scales will be up anytime soon. He just got caught in the roster crunch and they decided they'd rather have the extra bat in Fox than Scales.

They have said in some places. Sore shoulder..apparently has been bothering him since March.

Yup. Not a wizard there but good to very good.

This should put them at 38 for the 40 man roster. Fox was already on there, but Waddell and Blanco need to be added.

The fact that they were the worst running team in the game but still ranked 10th indicates they are giving a lot of credit to Manning (who probably isn't as good as he was at his peak). There is no reason why they should be the worst running team in the game again this year. They have two talented first round RB's and an offensive line that has much more experience than at many points last year. All the rookies they drafted last year got significant playing time, and one of their starting guards is coming back after missing all of last year. And Manning's decision making is better than ever, which helps make up for the fact that his arm has slipped slightly from his peak.

I wonder if they're planning to make a second move. It doesn't make sense to bring two players from Iowa other than if they are really worried about Scales being out several more days with his illness and so seeing how he's feeling before deciding whether to go with the middle or corner infielder.

Really? I wouldn't. OBP is on a 1.000 point scale; Slg is on a 4.000 point scale. I'm not sure why that's relevant. They aren't measuring the same thing, so the different denominators are irrelevant. So you'd trade 100 points of OBP for 100 point of Slg? I wouldn't do that. It's obvious OBP is more important than SLG. I happen to like the 1.4 multiplier, which would say that at most normal OBP levels getting 100 points of SLG for 50 points of OBP is the right move. Looking at how each correlates to runs scored over the last few years, I don't really think a higher multiplier is prudent anymore. Plus, when you consider that Theriot's increase in SLG is coming from doubles and home runs (which SLG underrates) and actually has a decrease in singles (which SLG overrates) each point of his SLG becomes even closer to that of OBP.

Yes, it is.

Agreed. I much rather Theriot shoot those singles into RF like he did last yr, and keep a higher BA/OBP instead of hitting for more power and less contract/OBP. I'll admit, I've had a good time watching the Riot's power surge (loved those three doubles the other night), but for the better good of this team, we need the old Riot back. I strongly disagree with that. I'd much rather have a version of a Mark DeRosa at the plate than Ryan Theriot, even the Theriot of last year. And that's really what Theriot has become. Let's face it..Theriot was going to have a hard time maintaining a .387 OBP like he had last year. He might have been able to keep it around .370-.375, which still would have been fantastic. But with that putrid slugging, that means the best you could hope for OPS wise was somewhere between a .700 and .750. Now, after a slump his OBP is down at .335, but his OPS is still 43 points higher than last year! I'll trade 50 points of OBP for 100 points of slugging. And Theriot's OBP has room to go up...what he really needs to do is move up his walk rate a little more to match last year. Even if his average stays around .270-.275, if he can move his walk rate up so that his OBP is around .350 that would be a much superior player to the Theriot of 2008. And last year's Theriot had to rely on his BABIP not being unlucky to not be terrible. This years version can have that go a little wrong and still be all right. Not to mention that Theriot's swing keeps him from making additional outs in a couple of ways. First, Theriot was a big double play person last year. He hit so many ground balls that he grounded into 19 double plays last year. This year, he's on pace for 4. So Theriot might not be getting on base as much, but hitting more fly balls means his teammates stay on base more. Also, while he has been better at this so far this year, Theriot standing at first base less means that he doesn't try to steal as many bases, which minimizes the risk of his inconsistency in that department. Yes, Theriot has turned into a different player. And there are some things to be missed about the old player. But the new version is still likely to be better than the old one.

I might be wrong, but I think Aramis is signed through 2011, and the Cubs hold an option on him for 2012. If that's the case, Vitters should be in the minors for at least another three years. And that'd be totally OK...he'll only be 23 on Opening Day 2013. No need at all to rush him. Aramis has a player option for the 2011 season, and the Cubs have a club option for 2012. So he could be a free agent any of those 3 seasons depending on what happens. I think the 2013 season would probably go beyond not rushing Vitters. That would mean he would have spent a full year in each of Peoria, Daytona, Tennessee, and Iowa (or spent multiple years at one of those places). He might need that much time, but it also might prove to be problematic to keep him down that long if he's hitting well.

Every other year though has been opposite. I would rather trust those rather than the splits from 9 starts where the only difference is a couple more extra base hits. Besides, I don't think he was trying to get the left-handers in specifically. He did put Freel at 3rd when he could have gotten either Miles or Scales in who both bat left-handed. What other right-hander would you want in there? I'd rather sit Soto tonight than tomorrow. Lee is still ill, and I'm not playing Johnson over any of the 3 OF's tonight.

when has hendry severely overpaid in a trade? i've got one in like 6 years of him being a GM, juan pierre. in trades for good major league players, hendry has actually not paid all that much (nomar, lee, ramirez, harden). I wonder if Hoff is going to be part of this along with all the usual suspects. Oh, Hendry also overpaid for Kevin "[expletive]" Gregg. It's hard to say with the Gregg trade. We only know what the Cubs thought about Ceda, and that was the fact that several pitchers had passed him up on the pitching prospect chart. This wasn't a situation where they were giving up a guy they valued highly but they loved Gregg enough to give him up...this was a guy they were starting to sour on. My guess is that they really wanted to trade him before his trade value got as low as they believed his actual value was, and that they got the best player they could for him. And his trade value has been dropping steadily since then (and while you can't completely predict injuries, Ceda's conditioning made him a prime target for an injury).

Cotts might be the first change pretty soon here if Lou's quote is any indication: I assume his "it's time" didn't quite mean yet that it's time to pull the plug, but it probably does mean that Cotts has absolutely no extra rope left.

In addition to what the others have said, essentially it's a money difference. A normal player that is there from the start of the year goes like this (if they have no long-term contract signed): year 1-major league minimum year 2-tiny raise year 3-tiny raise year 4-arbitration year 1. This is where a player can finally start getting some significant raises instead of just making very close to major league minimum. year 5-arbitration year 2. A decent player usually receives a modest raise here. year 6-arbitration year 3-the rules for arbitration change in this year, so sometimes big raises can happen here. Year 7-free agency In the case of a Super 2, it goes like this: partial year (pro-rated minimum) year 1-tiny raise year 2-tiny raise year 3-Arbitration year 1 year 4-Arbitration year 2 year 5-Arbitration year 3 year 6-Arbitration year 4 Year 7-free agency It can be hard to convince an arbiter of too big of a raise from year to year. So it's highly beneficial to a player to have 4 arbitration years. Not only do they get into the 7 figures a year earlier, but they also have more time to build the raises incrementally, making that 3rd and 4th years of arbitration monster salary figures. A person brought up during the year who is not a Super 2 will have the same chart except their third full year will also be close to major league minimum and then they will have 3 full years of arbitration instead of 4. Basically, their decision to not bring up Wieters for another couple weeks could save the Orioles somewhere between 8-15 million dollars over the next 6 1/2 years.

Probably yes, but Orioles fans don't have a lot to look forward to this year. I can't imagine the Orioles not taking advantage of the attendance spike his first series would cause. On the Super 2, it's close. If he came up now, he might qualify and he might not. Every day they keep him down for the next 2-3 weeks makes it much more likely that he will not qualify.

My guess is they're going to wait for the next homestand. Super 2 status eligibility is right around now, and I think they want to be pretty sure that he won't get it at this point before bringing him up.

That decision made a little more sense. I think Kosuke was going to bat for either Freel or Miles in the 9th to face Capps but the freak injury changed all those plans. Of course, Kosuke should have taken the at-bat in the 7th and Z should have already have been used in the 5th, so there were definitely still major errors made.