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Monday. Thanks Soul. Now sit him Sunday as well and I'll bet he comes back refreshed until the All Star break. I'd anticipate the Cubs sitting several players on Sunday to give them two days off to rest, especially if they still have a comfortable margin and don't feel any urgency to win. Or perhaps rest a few players on Sunday and a few more on Tuesday. I admit I haven't been paying a lot of attention but I'd hope that Cedeno gets more starts to rest Theriot and DeRosa while having DeRosa give Ramirez a little rest as well. Losing Hoff hurts giving Sori a day off because having Johnson out there along with Edmonds isn't that productive of an OF imo. Hopefully Ward comes back healthy. Has Fukudome had a day off yet? Soriano will likely get a day off soon, and it will come by sending DeRosa out to the OF and getting either Cedeno or Fontenot a start (probably they'll pick Fontenot, since Soriano leaving will leave a gap at the top of the lineup). Lou's starting to rest players more. During this 9 game winning streak: Soto-1 day off Lee-1 Derosa-1 Theriot-2 Ramirez-1 Soriano hasn't had any (but 1 supposedly upcoming) Fukudome-1 Lou's been mixing and matching players quite a bit more lately. The main one I'd like to see get rest even a little more frequently than the last couple weeks is Soto.

The way Marquis's starts fall the next couple weeks, it will be hard to skip him. The off days need to fall right before his starts in order to skip him, and they end up falling right after his starts. They could probably skip his turn the week of the 23rd. And Marquis/Marshall piggybacking off of one another isn't a bad idea, but the Cubs need to get Marshall healthy again first.

I was waiting for Smoltz to come back and be one of my closers. Now that I am about to drop him, who do you think I should pick up to fit in his place? Ryan Franklin, or Rafael Soriano?

I'm certainly not defending him, but doesn't that make him the best 5th starter in baseball? Yeah, I threw that in there to say that while perception may make all of us think one of he's the worst we've ever seen, he's really not quite that bad. Right now his numbers are in that frustrating middle zone. He's not good enough to really be productive or to be able to trade him, but he isn't really bad enough to get cut either. That is just a horrible way to look at it. There may be 37 other starters with a worse ERA, but are they spread across all 30 teams? Are the just filling in temporarily. Are those ERA's park adjusted? And are they signed to the type of contract Marquis is signed to? I got news for you, Jason Marquis is not the Cubs 5th starter. He was signed to be more like a 3, and as far as guaranteed spots in the rotation he's a 4 right now. A 5th starter is in danger of losing his job at all times. Marquis has been handed his because of his ridiculous contract, and that ridiculous contract cannot be removed from the discussion. Yeah, I certainly wouldn't argue that Marquis is the best 5th starter in the league. Most of the names behind him are not temporary fill ins though, but many of them aren't usual 5th starters either. They're big money guys having bad years. Verlander, Buerhle, Meche, Penny, Oswalt, Myers, Lilly, Arroyo, Zito, Batista, Snell, Silva are just some of the guys. And no, those ERA's are not park adjusted, but if they were, that is a huge benefit to Marquis. The number grows closer to 50 pitchers if you look at ERA+ rather than ERA. And yes, I realize that Marquis was not signed to be the 5th starter. He certainly wasn't signed to be the 3rd though. In this market, you don't sign somebody for just 7 million dollars to be your 3rd starter. That's more like 4th starter money. 3rd starters have been getting 10-13 million per year. I'm not removing the contract from the discussion either. It's what makes the Cubs decision really hard right now. The decision making would be a lot easier one way or the other if he didn't have that crazy year 3 on there (which is the main thing that I have not liked about the contract...I'd rather have signed Marquis to 2/15 or even 2/16 than 3/21. His career with other coaches and tuning them out after a certain period of time made this type of situation very reasonable to happen after the decent first year that Marquis delivered).

Lou has tried to be careful with Wood, but they let Wood go 3 days in a row sometimes. An example is the last 3 days when he has picked up a 2 run, a 1 run, and a 3 run save. And 6 of Wood's last 7 saves have been 1 or 2 run saves (3 1 run, 3 2 run), with 5 of those coming in the win streak. And they haven't exactly had to find too many places for Wood to get work, which is why he has the most appearances on the entire team.

I'm certainly not defending him, but doesn't that make him the best 5th starter in baseball? Yeah, I threw that in there to say that while perception may make all of us think one of he's the worst we've ever seen, he's really not quite that bad. Right now his numbers are in that frustrating middle zone. He's not good enough to really be productive or to be able to trade him, but he isn't really bad enough to get cut either.

erik went to bed, so my guess is that the new game thread will be up in the morning or early afternoon. Wood will definitely be completely unavailable tomorrow, and Wuertz almost certainly will also be unavailable. Marmol has had 2 of the last 3 days off, but I still hope they only use him for 1 tomorrow. Lieber could possibly go 2. Howry should probably go only 1, but could go 2 if he's efficient. Hart could go 1 or 2 if he can get out of the inning this time (he threw 20 pitches tonight to get 1 out). Eyre and Cotts should be ready to take on the middle of the Padres lineup again. So they have barely enough, but they really could use a deep game by one of these starting pitchers. Hopefully Lilly can rebound from his terrible last start and go at least 6 in this game, and the Cubs can start to get some of their bullpen arms rested.

It's certainly a different time in the Cubs history when the starting rotation is 3rd in the NL in ERA and is labeled a "weakness". Not that I completely disagree..I understand the concern. But normally a ranking like that would be the crowning achievement of the team, and certainly not the weakness. It's nice to have to figure out how to make a well above average part even better rather than the alternative in recent years of struggling to maintain average production in every area.

Scott Eyre this season: 6 1/3 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K. I'm particularly impressed by the only 1 walk figure so far. BTW, he's thrown 12 pitches tonight so far, and 11 have been for strikes.

Wuertz time. I'm always in favor of letting the pitcher hit when you're going to pull him anyway. I think we're a little short on the bench with Fukudome unavailable and 13 pitchers. Miles claims Fukudome is available, didn't he? He did. Eyre better pitch the flippin 7th. I think he will with Giles and Gonzalez both coming up. If he struggles and has runners on for Kouzmanoff though, I wouldn't put it past Lou to pull him then.

Wuertz time. I'm always in favor of letting the pitcher hit when you're going to pull him anyway. I think we're a little short on the bench with Fukudome unavailable and 13 pitchers. Miles claims Fukudome is available, didn't he? Why isn't he in the game? He got a day off because his family is in town. He is available to pinch-hit though. Hopefully this has more to do with the fact that it's Wuertz's 4th day in a row, and less to do with the fact that Lou doesn't trust him. Putting Eyre in during this part of the order is the best use for him though, and he is much more rested than Wuertz is is.

Is Gameday wrong? They have DeRosa taking two balls, and then hitting the homer on the third pitch. Where in that is a hit and run? I assumed that it was a straight steal until you said that.

Marquis has to be one of the most frustrating pitchers I have ever seen. He's the type of pitcher that you have to let your emotion go and look after the game at his line, because he just does the dumbest things on the mound, and melts down half the time to boot. Watching him, it actually somewhat amazes me that there are 37 pitchers in the majors who have thrown at least 40 innings (so basically any starter who has pitched the majority of the season) that have a worse ERA than him. I said earlier in the year that I wasn't sure if 2008 or 2009 would be the year he would be really bad. I knew he would likely be decent for one, bad for the other. It looks like 2008 will be the bad year. He simply cannot find the plate, and for a guy who is hittable as he is, that doesn't produce good results. They either need to know what is wrong with his control right now and be taking steps to fix it, or they need to cut bait. If they don't know what's wrong, it's not likely to fix itself, and Marquis will continue to be only marginally effective without it.

Interesting issue comes up with this. How much rest do you think is given to a player with a full day off, vs a player who only plays 5-6 innings? For example, DeRosa has been getting a lot of starts. But he also has been coming out of a lot of games, especially lately. Can he play in more games because of that? Or does he need the same number of true days off? I definitely agree with you on both Theriot and Soto. Lou's starting to work Blanco in a little more and promises that Soto will get regular rest as the weather continues to be warm, but I'm taking a wait and see approach on that.

It says in play run(s) like it does for a sac fly. Of course, in the situation that you're describing, it would probably take 5 minutes to say anything because it was so confused.

The answer is yes. If Ward isn't ready (and the hopeful target date for his return is that series) I think the Cubs should be able to bring Hoffpauir back up right before the Toronto series starts. I believe the rule is 10 days, and that should be precisely 10 days. At worst, they'll be able to bring him up after the first Toronto game.

When you say the bullpen you mean Marmol and Wood. Everyone else should be rested. Even though he's only thrown to a couple batters each game, Wuertz has still thrown 3 days straight. It's hard to ask any pitcher to go 4 days in a row, no matter how many pitches they've thrown the previous day, and it's especially true for a guy like Wuertz, who from reports needs regular rest more than most bullpen pitchers do.

I disagree. The two pitchers with most chance of injury if you use them tonight are Wuertz and Wood. Those are the pitchers you need to protect most in tonight's game. Marmol's right behind them in the short-term. With him, the bigger concern is the long-term. Once they get the bullpen rested again, they need to start sitting him more in order to get his pace for innings in a season down closer to 90 instead of 103. It would be wonderful if it started tonight, but they shouldn't throw Wuertz or Wood out in a very risky situation for them in order to do it.

I'll second that. My guess at the lineup: Soriano Theriot Lee Ramirez Soto Cedeno DeRosa Johnson Marquis

I'd imagine Wood is probably a little closer to unavailable than Marmol is because Wood would be going 3 days in a row, which the organization doesn't want to do very often, and Marmol had the off day on Sunday. Both have pitched 4 out of 5 games though, so while I'd pitch Marmol before Wood, I don't really want to pitch either of them. The Cubs need to be patient against Ledezma tonight. He's extremely shaky with his control and tends to throw a lot of pitches. He does strike out a decent number, so he may be able to get out of a few jams, but if they remain patient he'll be out by the end of the 5th tonight, and if they can get the big hit he could very well be out quicker than that.

I really do like the attitude of Edmonds in this article. Here are a couple of snippets: And this last quote about the fans in Chicago: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080602&content_id=2825326&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

If he's either really good or really terrible, I'd leave him out there for a while tonight. If he's in that in between zone (5-6 innings, 3-4 runs) and the game is close, I'd pull him. 2 innings of your bullpen saved is not enough reward to hurt your chances of winning by continuing to throw a tired Marquis out there. I wouldn't pull him before the end of the 5th for almost any circumstance though. BTW, I just read that Fukudome is getting the night off tonight. His wife and his recently born son are with him for the first time all season, and Lou is giving him the day off so he can concentrate on them.

Cedeno's started 3 out of the last 16 games at SS (and 2 out of the last 7). I hope that continues and Theriot doesn't have any stretches like he did earlier in May where he started 23 straight games. Cedeno once a week or so at SS should be enough to keep Theriot pretty fresh.

Once again? Z had 5 starts last year coming off a high pitch count (120 or more) 4 of them were quality starts. 9 innings, 1 run 8 innings, 1 run 7 innings, 3 runs 6 2/3 innings, 0 runs 5 innings, 6 runs for a total ERA of 2.77 after a high pitch count last year, which is quite a bit better than his ERA for the season last year. Taking a quick look through game logs from previous seasons (when Z was over 120 with some regularity) it does not look like Z was noticeably worse coming off high pitch counts than any other time.

I think part of that was some carryover from the last few games when Lou pulled Wuertz under similar circumstances. He hasn't been good entering the game the last few appearances, and Lou hasn't given him a very long leash either. Wuertz's last 7 appearances: 4 2/3 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 6 BB, 4 K That's an ERA of 1.93, but a WHIP of 2.57. I can tell you one thing. If Lou's going to pull Wuertz that quickly when he isn't good, then he needs to go back to making sure to pitch him 2 or 2 1/3 innings when he is good. I would support 13 pitchers for now. Bring up Hart, hopefully one of the next 2 games is a blowout and he can throw 4 innings, the rest of the bullpen can get a much needed day off, and he can go right back to AAA after the ballgame.