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There's several issues with Burnett. 1) He hasn't been any better than Jason Marquis this season. Could he suddenly get better moving to the NL? Probably. How much better? Unknown. He's got great career numbers, but he hasn't shown any consistency this year. In his last 7 starts, he's given up 2 runs or less in 4 of them, but in the other 3 he's given up 8 runs a start. 2) He has an opt out clause after the season. So if he's good, the Cubs lose him. If he stinks, the Cubs have to keep him for 2 more years at 12 million per year. 3)He does still have that long injury history, so even if he is good, he could get hurt the day after the trade. Of course the main positive is that he has proved that at times, he has been a very dominant pitcher. Is that worth all the issues? Maybe. I certainly wouldn't trade Hill to go get him though. I'd rather take the risk on Hill suddenly finding it than gamble on Burnett suddenly finding it, especially since Burnett's gamble if gone wrong also puts a significant dent on the payroll and requires us to also lose our only backup SS. Burnett only looks like he's been as bad as Marquis because Marquis has a great defense backing him up. They have similar HR rates, and Burnett smokes him at K/BB. I don't judge a pitcher solely on DIPs/FIP but when you have a glaring difference like there is for Burnett compared to Marquis I take notice. Burnett's never been this bad before and he's only 31. There's no reason to believe he won't be at worst league average the rest of the way and his peripherals point to him being much better than that. Best of all he's cheap. Cedeno + junk should get him. Yeah, looking at their careers, Burnett's numbers are much more likely to improve, while Marquis will probably stay the same or get worse. Although, Burnett is much more likely to get hurt. I wasn't really trying to compare Burnett to Marquis in any way but trying to give a visual example of how bad Burnett has been this season. If I had to choose Burnett or Marquis to be a better pitcher over the next 3 years, I'd bet on Burnett at least 99 out of 100 times. I'd be careful using Burnett's peripherals though to say that he's due for a rapid improvement. For example, his LOB percentage. It's a 65.9 percent, which is low. At the same time, that's because Burnett simply hasn't had the same type of stuff from start to start. In many starts, he's been dominant and hasn't had many runners to leave on base. When he doesn't have his best stuff, he gets absolutely pounded. That leads itself to a deceiving lob percentage because when there are runners on base, that is a huge indication with Burnett that he's going to continue leaving easy pitches to hit over the plate. That's not the case with normal pitchers. Any pitcher who has such a wide disparity in their starts (and believe me, there aren't many of them) are going to have better peripherals than their numbers. I would suspect an improvement from his K percentage, but that's not going to get rid of the disaster starts, and those starts are the only reason his numbers are that bad.

Thanks Bruce! Looks good.

There's several issues with Burnett. 1) He hasn't been any better than Jason Marquis this season. Could he suddenly get better moving to the NL? Probably. How much better? Unknown. He's got great career numbers, but he hasn't shown any consistency this year. In his last 7 starts, he's given up 2 runs or less in 4 of them, but in the other 3 he's given up 8 runs a start. 2) He has an opt out clause after the season. So if he's good, the Cubs lose him. If he stinks, the Cubs have to keep him for 2 more years at 12 million per year. 3)He does still have that long injury history, so even if he is good, he could get hurt the day after the trade. Of course the main positive is that he has proved that at times, he has been a very dominant pitcher. Is that worth all the issues? Maybe. I certainly wouldn't trade Hill to go get him though. I'd rather take the risk on Hill suddenly finding it than gamble on Burnett suddenly finding it, especially since Burnett's gamble if gone wrong also puts a significant dent on the payroll and requires us to also lose our only backup SS.

It looks like they are trying to keep Fukudome in the 2 spot so that he can be acclimated to it when Soriano comes back. Hopefully that means Theriot or Fontenot are in the leadoff spot today, not Johnson for the 3rd straight day. Johnson probably has the inside track though.

Does anybody want to get anybody out in Colorado tonight? Colorado has scored in all 7 innings tonight, including 4 in the 5th, 3 in the 6th, and 4 in the 7th, but is still trailing to Florida. The score? 17-16. Yes, you read that right. And Colorado is still batting in the 7th.

The only way I could say Theriot coming close to the All-Star game is if he makes the 32nd player voting and then somehow gets voted in that way. I see it as more likely though that one of the others gets left to the 32nd man vote, if it be Ramirez, Fukudome, or Dempster.

He was an 8th round pick out of Clemson last year. It was the 4th time he had been drafted. He was supposed to have good power potential when he came out, and he really has realized it so far this year. After a slow start in April, he's been red hot in May-July. His error totals are a little high, but he had an excellent defensive reputation in college. He's a player who should be in Daytona right now, but regardless of how he moves right now he'll probably do a pretty good job of moving through the system in the next couple years. I don't really see a future with the Cubs unless he can make the transition to 2nd base like they were working earlier in the year with him on. His future potential with the Cubs is probably a decent trade chip if he's still hitting well when he hits AA.

Didn't he say he was going to ease Marmol slowly back into high leverage situations spots? So he puts him in in a 1 run game with guys at first and third with no outs, after getting bombed the night before. He asically was saying "we need a strike out right now. nothing else will do. No pressue though!" And then he pulls him after 1 batter, leaving him confidence at an all-time low. Well played. Where did Lou say that? I haven't seen that quote at all.

Interesting choice to sit Gallagher down now with his spot due up 1st next inning only at 74 pitches. Let's go Wuertz.

Lincecum's up to 54 pitches after 3 despite the Cubs only having 3 baserunners so far. He's not pitching a complete game tonight unless the Cubs go hacking away up there for the next 6 innings, and the man is not invincible even when he is in the game. This game is certainly not anywhere near over.

Probably Ascanio Thanks so much Bruce. Hopefully the team can give you an easy story tonight. Those games where the offense gets shut down and the team has to get on a plane right after the game can't be very fun to try to get any good quotes, so hopefully that won't happen tonight.

One more question if I may Bruce, although I understand if you cannot comment on it: Do you know if the Cubs are going to send down either a pitcher or a hitter tomorrow? I know a specific name probably hasn't been decided on, but have they expressed that they are going to go with 13 pitchers over the weekend (considering Marshall is going to stay up for at least a couple days after Z is activated) or is one of the pitchers going down tomorrow?

This is really the lineup? Considering how much better Johnson has done hitting lower and the order and with runners on (especially in scoring position) and how horrible he's been at leadoff AND that Lincecum is a rightie, this seems rather dumb. That is the lineup. I can understand putting Johnson in the lineup in an effort to work him back in. Lou likes to do that to people just returning to the team. However, it should be Fukudome 1st, Theriot 2nd, and Johnson 8th. Hopefully Johnson can surprise us like he did the last two times he lead off against right-handers.

Johnson was good at not complaining about being put on the DL even though he was only hurt for 5-6 days, so Lou gives him a start when he comes back and lets him hit leadoff: Johnson-LF Fukudome-RF Lee-1B Ramirez-3B Edmonds-CF Soto-C DeRosa-2B Theriot-SS Gallagher-P And the Giants go this way: Lewis-LF Durham-2B Winn-RF Molina-C Rowand-CF Bowker-1B Castillo-3B Vizquel-SS Lincecum-P

Renteria has had 3 extra base hits since April 24th. A home run and a triple in May, and a home run on June 7th. And unlike Theriot (who has had 7 in that time-all doubles) Renteria has no OBP to fall back on. Plus, he's been 100 points better at home than on the road this year, and has been in a massive slump the last two months. He'd be a somewhat interesting buy low candidate if the Cubs SS position was similar to what the Cubs C position was doing at this time last year. Since it's not though, I don't see how trading for Renteria would be fruitful. We would have to give up prospects on a huge gamble that Renteria the rest of the year would be better than Theriot, and there really aren't that many indicators right now that say that he would be.

Just to give you perspective on how bad the NL West is, last year the NL Central with 6 teams went a combined 54 games under .500 for the season. This year, just over halfway through, the NL West with only 5 teams is 53 games under .500.

The Cubs didn't stand pat in 03. Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez, and Randall Simon were all added for the stretch run. I was thinking more in terms of pitching. I do recall Lofton & Simon being added late in the year but I'm not sure I would consider them difference makers. when was Ramirez acquired? Ramirez was acquired at the same time as Lofton. Tuesday, July 22nd. They both ended up being difference makers. Lofton filled the huge hole in CF that had come with the Patterson injury, and Ramirez replaced the Bellhorn/Martinez/Harris 3 headed monster at 3B. And the Cubs didn't need to add much pitching. That was the part carrying them all season.

The Cubs didn't stand pat in 03. Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez, and Randall Simon were all added for the stretch run.

Fixed. I didn't realize Betancourt sucked so bad this year until I checked his stats. By the way, did you know Casey Blake is making $6 million this year? That seems high. There's no way that even gets the Indians to the table. Marmol, Cedeno, and Marshall doesn't even get close to netting Sabathia, let alone Kobayashi as well. I would not make the deal if C.C was not going to sign with us. That's assuming the deal was Gallagher, Cedeno, two top prospects (who I will fill in as Vitters and Veal). Never mind-I've changed my mind. The two draft picks are enough compensation to make having a great rental worth it for that price. I'd reluctantly do that deal.

Well, that was rather uneventful for a long inning. Not often you see a 4 batter, 28 pitch inning. It would have been even longer but it was only the 3rd pitch of the at-bat when he hit Soto.

And quick question, can Vitters be traded yet or do we still have to do the PTBNL thing? It would have to be PTBNL because Vitters didn't sign last year until mid-August.

I'm intrigued but not getting the game. What was he saying?

Doug Deeds hits a walkoff 2 run homer and Tennessee beats Huntsville 6-5.

This Boston-Tampa Bay game reminds me of the last game of the Cubs-Rays series. The Rays have used some walks and some big hits to already score 4 in the 7th to take the lead, and there is still nobody out. The Mets-Cardinals game is going again. It's in the top of the 4th now.

Yeah. 7 baserunners total in the first 2 innings, and they figure out a way to only get 1 out of it.