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he was very good last year. at this point one would have to think it's some mental block. his command was fine the last two years. i suspect that he's going to have to figure it out himself at this point. His control was more than fine last year. His K rate, control and WHIP were excellent for a full year and a half, a period during which he was better than Z. I don't believe he's lost it for good, as he was able to recover from several demotions in the past. But, I'm certainly losing faith in his ability to contribute this year. I wonder if they had not screwed with his dead by sending him down this year, whether he would have righted the ship with up here. He wasn't pitching that badly at the time, but the demotion started this ridiculous spiral. I'm not sure the minor leagues have made him spiral any worse. His control hasn't been that much worse overall (9.45 BB per 9 in the minors, 8.24 in the majors) and a large part of that minor difference is on his bad control days, he was given a quick hook in the majors, while in the minors he's been given a little more slack and allowed to continue walking batters. As far as him not getting out of the first last night, at some point with that bad of control problems you're going to give up a couple of lucky hits and give up a huge inning, even if your stuff is nasty. That's why people said his ERA was a mirage in the majors. It's just very improbable that you can continue to be productive with that high of a walk rate over a decent sample. With his control, one of these disaster starts was going to come eventually whichever level he was at.

...or at the same time. I think the Blue Jays would like to get out of Vernon Wells' contract. Burnett and Wells for every spare part we have. That'll be going all in for this year. Didn't Vernon Wells sign an extension well over $100 mill with Toronto? Yes. After this year, he's due 117 million over the next 6 seasons. To compare, Soriano is due to make 106 million over the same 6 years left on his deal. This for a guy who hasn't had better than a .762 OPS on the road in the past 5 years. He had a .706 OPS overall last year and has a .761 so far this year. There's no way I would want Wells. He might put up 2 years out of 6 that are in line with his contract. Plus, adding a contract that is higher than Soriano's makes the Cubs adding payroll anytime in the next year and a half iffy, and adding an overpaid Wells is not worth that.

I would hardly define getting Jerry Blevins and Rob Bowen for Kendall as screwing us. I think the screwing us part comes when we get Jason Kendall. I think Kendall was exactly what the Cubs expected last year. A .350 OBP catcher with no power and defensive problems. The part where the Cubs erred was taking that over Soto, not having anything to do with Beane. As I said a couple of weeks ago, in 3 deals with the club, the Cubs were the only one to get a pretty good player (Barrett). So far when the two of them have hooked up the Cubs have gotten Barrett, Bynum, and Kendall. The A's have gotten Damian Miller, Koronka (sent to the Rangers instead), Bowen, and Blevins. Blevins is the only one with future potential in that list, and he's a 24 year old reliever not having a great year in AAA. I'd say the Cubs have gotten the slightly better end of the deals so far. The Cubs also got a compensatory pick for Kendall. I'm not sure if the A's did for Miller or not.

It is? When you consider that he's been very good against left-handers this year, and that the fact that he cannot start probably means the Cubs have 3 bench players today (including Henry Blanco), I would say it isn't particularly good that he didn't appear in the starting lineup.

Pretty much split down into 3 different categories, actually: 1) Overuse 2) Marmol isn't sharp when he isn't used much, especially when he has several days off before an outing. 3) It simply was going to come eventually. Marmol is a guy with nasty stuff, and has had control problems in the past. 1 or 2 times he's not going to be able to locate either of his pitches and just absolutely blow up. I've seen people with all 3 interpretations. I tend to believe number 3, although I'm open to both of the others being contributing factors.

I hope Patterson isn't recalled because that means somebody is headed to the DL, and the only one that is likely to be serious enough to do that would be Z. Pie could come up for Murton though.

I should have put this at the end of the first post, especially since I got beat to the punch anyway. Certainly not the best hitting lineup to have Blanco in there. But I think it's a great move. You accomplish 2 things: to continue resting Soto, who needs to remain fresh. And, the Cubs have to be very careful to slow down the Rays running game tonight. Blanco does a good job of accomplishing that, and since there's the DH, you don't have to take Soto out of the game to do that. Plus it's not like the 2 healthy Cubs who are on the bench tonight have been killing the ball either. So Blanco isn't that much of a downgrade offensively, and really helps the Cubs defensively tonight. I like the thought process here.

Can't wait to hear the comments about this lineup: Cubs Fukudome-CF Theriot-SS Lee-1B Ramirez-3B Soto-DH Hoffpauir-LF DeRosa-RF Blanco-C Fontenot-2B

The club has pretty broad discretionary powers on what times games are. Blame TB for this, not MLB.

Sorry to nitpick, but what the hell does a good arm have to do with hitting leadoff? Lou's getting old. I was suprised nobody mentioned this little fact in the game thread when Len casually mentioned it a few minutes ago. That's a huge change, although Fukudome better have a little success there early or Lou probably will change his mind. He doesn't need to be great, but he can't be terrible there. And Kosuke putting the 1st pitch in play isn't surprising in the slightest. He leads the Cubs in that catgory.

I think he probably meant has a team ever decided to not use the DH and just let the pitcher hit from the start of the game. As for using a pitcher to hit period, the Cubs would have had a somewhat small chance of having to do it last night if Johnson's bunt had been successful. They would have had the pitcher's spot be 8th in extra innings, and had only 1 bench player left before they would have had to use Zambrano and Marquis to pinch-hit.

Looks like the minor leagues need to get into the "21st century" and have pinch runners for every batter. Seriously though, that's too bad for him in his first professional game. I'm sure it makes him feel a little bit better that his replacement got to have the thrill of a walkoff homerun in his first major league at bat though.

I'll certainly miss Colvin swinging at everything. The thought of him gone brings me to tears. Actually, that Tyler Colvin has disappeared. The new Tyler Colvin has good patience, but has lost the ability to hit. We're looking for the first one to see if we can somehow merge the old one and the new one together.

Sullivan probably got confused like normal. The Cubs told him they were interested in Crisp. The Cubs told him that Rich Hill was becoming available. Sullivan put the two together, but I doubt they were together to begin with. Or it's still possible that he could be making up the Rich Hill part completely on his own. That second part of the line sounds more like speculation than anything else.

Hoffpauir batting was the right move. There were runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. If you bat Edmonds, the Rays probably walk him intentionally and set up the double play. Now you have Hoffpauir and Johnson to try to win the game for you. If you send Hoffpauir up there first, the Rays probably pitch to him. If they walk him, you're fine with that also. But even if Hoffpauir gets out, they aren't going to intentionally walk Edmonds with 2 outs. I thought it was a good piece of managing to make sure our best hitter left didn't have the bat taken out of his hands.

can't use up your whole bench when it looks like it could go extras Why not? You dont have to worry about the pitcher hitting, and you essentially have all your best guys out there. move Edmonds to center, Kosuke to right, DeRosa to 2nd Soto to catch. You do have to worry about the pitcher hitting. Soto would have had to come in to catch, so the Cubs would have lost the privilege of using the DH for the rest of the game. The pitcher would be slotted into the 8th slot. From what it sounds like, Johnson's bunt had a 30% or better chance of succeeding. Normally, that's not very good odds. But when you need 1 to tie like that and a runner on 3rd (making a single a much better outcome than it normally is), it's better to try it than to continue batting against a tough closer.

I'm guessing it will be Soto, DeRosa, and then as many pinch-hitters in the next few spots until either the game ends, the Cubs take the lead, or the bench is completely gone.

Um, why? He's the best reliever in baseball Setup men only get picked if they are either having an absolutely historic season, or if they are the only representative of their team. Setup men with over 2.00 ERA's on a team filled with All-Star candidates? I think it would be really hard for him to get picked. The only good thing for him is that there are so few dominant closers in the NL this year, who automatically get priority over setup guys.

Backup position players do not go by vote totals. The fans have no say other than the starters and then picking the 32nd man. The only way in for Theriot is if he wins the vote. DeRosa makes it if they need a 3rd 2nd baseman, but that's the only way. I also believe Marmol is for sure out at this point.

The only thing I'm worried about is that you will have to be pretty sure you're going to end it soon if you want to pinch-hit for Blanco later in the game. He has a decent chance of coming up in a big spot, and Lou will almost certainly have to stick with him.

And an OPS nearing .900. He's been a good pickup for them, even if he probably will hit the DL a couple of other times this year.

this is coming from a guy that likes soccer. You know the old saying about soccer and golf. We love to play it because it is so boring to watch. Not even close to the same thing. In golf they hit a shot, walk 200 yards, then stand over the ball for 30 second, then walk around it for few more, talk to the caddy and then hit the shot. Putts are even worse because they walk around the ball for a minute looking at every single angle and slope, then take some practice swings, look at the lie a little more, take a couple more practice swings and then finally shoot the ball. And in soccer, players kick the ball around the field, and the ball is never close to the goal for 95 percent of the match. It's without a doubt the most boring sport I've ever tried to watch. At least the players are doing something on the field (i.e. kicking the ball around) rather than walking for 200 yards in between shots. There's not a chance soccer is more boring than golf. Not even close. Televised Golfing events usually bounce between players so there's little time that nothing is happening. Usually the moments that take "forever" such as stepping up to the ball or reading a putt build the tension, at least for me anyway. Granted, it isn't everyones cup of tea and I understand that. But watching Golf on tv has never bored me. I'm hoping to go to the US Open next year seeing as it's about 30 minutes away :cool: I also believe that golf is a very social TV sport. You watch it with a group and you know when you need to concentrate and in between the shots you just talk. I've enjoyed many major championships watching with a group of 10-20 having a great time. While in soccer, there is approximately the same amount of action, but you have to concentrate the entire time on the match because you never know when the action is going to come. That makes it a more boring sport to watch for me because you have more active concentration time that nothing big is happening.

You could actually push Theriot into the game with that small deficit. I think the other Cubs are pretty much locked in at this point, in or out.

The Devil Rays are not a great offensive team. They're 8th in the AL in runs (6th in OPS) and 17th in the majors in runs (13th in OPS). Pretty much exactly like the 2007 Cubs offense, even down to the exact same OBP number. Their pitching is better than their offense. None of the starters stand out besides Kazmir, but they are pretty decent. Their back end of the bullpen is very good, especially Wheeler and Percival.

Way too logical for the Cubs. Tend to agree. It will certainly be Edmonds/Johnson in CF. But I see the LF at-bats being handed out on a game to game basis. Johnson will gets starts in LF against right-handers, Hoffpauir will get starts there, Murton will get starts against left-handers, Fontenot will get occasional starts with DeRosa moving to LF, and Cedeno will get occasional starts with DeRosa moving to LF. Maybe the same group will start 3-4 games in a row, but I doubt you see the same 1-2 players getting at-bats there for very long before Lou tries yet another combination.