CubColtPacer

nope, not at all. Agreed. Maybe if Z didn't come back for 4 more starts, and Marquis kept giving up 5-6 runs per start. But they're not going to replace Marquis unless his ERA is well above 5, and it's not even at 5 yet. Plus, Marshall would have to be dominant in those 4 starts in order to make up for his poor performance on Tuesdya.

No. He took strike one, then swung at what would have likely been strike 2. Too bad no runs there, but the Cubs did make Liz throw 31 pitches in that inning after just 10 in the first.

Theriot has come out of his little slump the past few days. It's nice to see him hitting line drives again.

Marquis just needs to keep his composure today. With the wind, he's probably going to give up a HR or two and probably 3-4 runs. He just needs to try not to be perfect, keep throwing strikes, and trust his offense to score more then that.

Garza is through 6. The Cardinals are having one of those rare types of days so far. They've had 8 baserunners in the first 4 innings and have 0 runs.

Garza has a no-hitter through 5.

No, Jones was better than Pie, and Sherill was better than Ceda. Not to mention the Orioles got 3 more pitchers with that deal, including 2 very intriguing ones. Sherill at the time was considered the 3rd player in that deal behind Jones and Tillman.

Cubs go the same way as yesterday: Patterson Theriot Lee Ramirez Edmonds Soto DeRosa Fontenot Marquis Baltimore has: Roberts Cintron Markakis Millar Huff Payton Jones Quiroz Liz

Anybody open Gameday today? What are the benefits of this new system? Sure, it looks kind of cool at first, but I have no idea how I'm supposed to use it to get any better of information then before.

There's a little blurb about how Lou doesn't expect him to be, but it really all depends on how he feels today. Fukudome also said having to play on the turf was a contributing factor in it.

good luck with that don't you like purdue? if so, enough out of you Yes I do. Why that matters I don't know. I just can't see West Virginia playing up to their talent level because they personnel that fits a unique very uncommon offensive system. BTW this is one of the main reasons I really hate ND. They win three games yet experts, and I'm using that loosely, have them ranked in pre-season polls. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=schlabach_mark&id=3459463 They won't be ranked in the actual polls. If you look at the pre-season polls compared to their final ranking though, ND hasn't been consistently overranked. The years they've been ranked to start the season, they've been unranked to finish. When they've been unranked to start, they climbed into the rankings to finish. So they've been overrated in some years at the beginning of the season, and they equally have been underrated in some other years.

Gallagher goes Friday. It's a good way to keep his innings number slightly down to move him back a couple days in certain situations like this. He's still very young. It's not great to have him throwing too many innings, and the Cubs may need him to stay in the rotation the rest of the year. I'm hoping those two can keep it rolling the next two days. They really have been pitching well in June.

not realistic. if you're going to have a backup middle infielder, he's almost certain to be a lousy hitter. take a look around baseball and see how many teams have a solid hitter who can come off the bench and play shortstop. if the guy can hit and play SS/2B, he's already starting. When did we get rid of Cedeno? Teams rarely carry just one backup middle infielder. It leaves you too handcuffed in the people you can pinch-hit for, double switches, injuries, etc. Now the fact that Patterson is up and could switch to 2nd base if need be is a decent argument. It seems like the Cubs don't want to do that unless they absolutely need to through. But even if you said that Hoffpauir was definitely a better hitter than Fontenot, when is he going to play? They don't seem to trust him in the OF. He's not going to get many pinch-hitting appearances because he's both behind Ward on the depth chart for LH pinch-hitters, and the Cubs won't send him up there to bat against a left-hander. He'll come up, and he'll just sit on the bench and likely get burned in a 2 pinch-hitter move as often as he actually gets an at-bat. It's a bad use of resources. So you bring him up, stash Patterson or Murton in the minors and give as many opportunities as we can. Hopefully, he comes through, and can gain some trade value. Some opportunities where? Because the Cubs aren't going to start him in the OF on a regular basis. They made that pretty clear with how they made the lineups the last couple of weeks. And I really doubt that a 28 year old 1B who can play some OF is going to gain a lot of trade value just because he plays well for a couple of weeks. At best, if he does reasonably well, he'll bounce around the league as a poor man's Daryle Ward, who is a nice player to have but not one with a lot of trade value.

It's a completely different issue. Prior can't get his arm to rehab to the point where he's both feeling no pain and getting the same velocity on his pitches. Wood would always rehab ok, but then after the 60 pitch mark he would start feeling pain again. For Wood, the bullpen was a natural way to avoid putting that many pitches on his arm in any one night, which greatly reduces the risk of injury for him. With Prior, he needs to be able to find his velocity first without pain before he can even think about how he can try to preserve it, and he hasn't really had his good stuff since 2005. If he ever does find it again though, I don't think starting will put any more stress on his arm issue then the bullpen would.

not realistic. if you're going to have a backup middle infielder, he's almost certain to be a lousy hitter. take a look around baseball and see how many teams have a solid hitter who can come off the bench and play shortstop. if the guy can hit and play SS/2B, he's already starting. When did we get rid of Cedeno? Teams rarely carry just one backup middle infielder. It leaves you too handcuffed in the people you can pinch-hit for, double switches, injuries, etc. Now the fact that Patterson is up and could switch to 2nd base if need be is a decent argument. It seems like the Cubs don't want to do that unless they absolutely need to through. But even if you said that Hoffpauir was definitely a better hitter than Fontenot, when is he going to play? They don't seem to trust him in the OF. He's not going to get many pinch-hitting appearances because he's both behind Ward on the depth chart for LH pinch-hitters, and the Cubs won't send him up there to bat against a left-hander. He'll come up, and he'll just sit on the bench and likely get burned in a 2 pinch-hitter move as often as he actually gets an at-bat. It's a bad use of resources.

Well, Ward against a left-hander was likely not going to end well. It's absurd how many pitches he's seeing so far this year though in his first few at-bats. He came into today's game seeing 4.8 pitches per plate appearance, and after a 7 pitch at-bat that's just going to go up. The Cubs should also take the MLB walks lead away from the Cardinals after tonight unless the Cardinals walk at least 5 times in the last 4 innings of their game.

well, he's over 1.000 ops .304/.387/.622/1.009 Did you add in his sac fly? Your OBP total looks a little high, at least from what I calculated.

well, he's over 1.000 ops I don't think he quite is. I think his line if I calculated right (and I did it very quickly) is a .305/.376/.622 line with the Cubs in 93 plate appearances.

He actually hits pretty well for a backup middle infielder. 2B is not exactly a premium offensive position, and Fontenot's numbers are very close to league average there, which is excellent for a backup. He is very limited, which isn't a great quality of a bench player, but that makes the Cubs the perfect fit for him with DeRosa, which hides his biggest weakness to a major league team. When you compile the list of the leagues worst bench players, Fontenot is nowhere near it.

I doubt he would make the roster if not for DeRosa. It doesn't matter that much if Fontenot can play multiple spots or not because the 1 position he plays is filled by the guy who can. So in effect, Fontenot gets to contribute whenever DeRosa needs a day off, or when Ramirez is down, or when a corner OF is down.

Is this official? I've heard the rumors, but can't seem to find any confirmation. Actually, it's not. Crap! I didn't read the whole article. I guess it's "near". The latest rumor I've heard today is that it is off, but I haven't heard anything for 2 hours or so.

Is this official? I've heard the rumors, but can't seem to find any confirmation.

Albers? Baltimore seems determined to destroy his arm. Earlier this season, he started a game, then went into the bullpen for 2 weeks throwing 10-15 pitches per outing. At the end of that time, he threw 16 pitches one day, 18 pitches the next, then had 2 days rest, and then they let him throw 94 pitches in a game he started. This time it's much less crazy. He threw 36 pitches on the 21st, so he's had 3 days rest. It will be interesting to see how long Baltimore throws him out there though. He is a high walk guy and is only a decent strikeout pitcher, so this is one pitcher the Cubs should absolutely take pitches against. There's a lot of reward and not that much risk. Note that I'm not saying the Cubs should look at every first pitch. I would never recommend that for any pitcher. But he's exactly the type of pitcher you shouldn't be worried about getting into deeper counts with, so go up there on the first pitch acting like it's a 2-0 or 3-1 count and only swinging if the ball comes into one of your best hitting zones. He's also a pretty good ground ball guy, so the Cubs need to be wary of that with runners on. I do agree that the Cubs will probably go with a very similar lineup tonight as they did last night now unless Lou was very upset with Patterson's adventures out there.

he's actually quite good when his arm isn't falling off. Is he the guy they got from the Pirates for LaRoche? Yup, that's him.

The guy who is 32 for his last 32 in save opportunities dating back to 2004, including 24 for 24 in 2006? He has missed a year after surgery, but he does have quite a streak going, and isn't a bad option for the Braves at the closer spot.