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If you had to take these performances from a player every day, which one would you not want to take? The guy who went 6 innings, 10 hits, 2 walks, only had 2 strikeouts, and gave up 5 extra base hits including 3 home runs. He ended up giving 4 runs. The guy who went 0 for 5 with 2 K's. The guy who went 0 for 4 with a walk The guy who went 1 for 4 with a home run and a walk, and also had a misplay that let in a run. I would win a lot more games taking Soriano's performance everyday rather than Fukudome's or Lilly's. If the Cubs had been behind from the beginning of the game until the end, Lilly would have been the one blamed. Just because the Cubs took the lead and Soriano's misplay happened to be the 27th out rather than the 10th, that means it's a lot more important?

Soriano definitely wasn't the worst part of the day. Lilly was definitely the worst today. 12 baserunners in 6 innings, including 3 home runs and 2 doubles. He's incredibly lucky that he only gave up 4 in his 6 innings. Fukudome also had a tough day. 0-5 with 2 K's and Theriot wasn't much better, going 0-4 with a walk. Soriano's misplay might have looked the most ridiculous, but the timing of the play is the only reason people are blaming him. Overall, his day was ok.

There were runners on first and second with one out. Lou brought Eyre in to face LaRoche. After LaRoche struck out, Lou decided to bring Wuertz in to try to get the next guy out and end the inning. Since he only had Wuertz and Ascanio left, Lou had to use Wuertz for more than 1 inning. Wuertz was due up 3rd the next inning, so the only way to keep Wuertz from batting was to doubleswitch. Blanco was the last guy remaining on the bench, and based on where the Cubs were in the lineup (they had just finished with Ramirez the previous inning) Lee was the only candidate to be replaced. Lou gambled that the Cubs could score before they got all the way back around to Lee's spot. The mistake lies in bringing in Wuertz, not the double switch. If you let Eyre pitch to one more batter, you can then pinch-hit for him the next inning and then bring in Wuertz. Once Lou pulled Eyre, the double switch made sense, but I'd rather gamble that Eyre can get the next batter out then be forced into that decision. I actually thought that the decision to bunt with Blanco was a poor one. He had walked the previous two hitters. Blanco is better against left-handers than right-handers. It was a 1-0 count. I'd let him take a strike (showing bunt) and hope that the pitcher either continues to be wild or attempts to groove one over expecting the bunt attempt.

The Pirates could struggle with bullpen pitchers today. They had 2 pitchers go 50+ pitches Friday night (I guess technically they could bring them back, but it would be awfully fast for that many pitches). Grabow threw 46 pitches last night, so he's out, and Capps threw 32, so he can throw 1 inning max. So we'll likely see a lot of Osoria and Marte today out of the bullpen. For the Cubs, Wood's the only guy who is probably completely out, and Wuertz and maybe Lieber are questionable. The others will be ready to go.

Because then Wuertz would have to come out of the game, and the Cubs need to have him pitch multiple innings. The pitcher's spot was due up 3rd the next inning. You either have Wuertz bat for himself (which does pretty severe damage to you scoring in the 13th) or you double switch, take your best hitter out, and hope that you win it before he has too many turns at bat. Lou's gambling and trying to win it in the next 2 innings.

Durability is huge with organizations. Loaiza only pitched 40 innings last year, and was worse in those innings than Marquis has been either last year or this year (Marquis with a 4.60 ERA, Loaiza had a 5.79 ERA). Then, he came back this year, and while being unlucky had put up a 5.63 ERA, which is quite a bit worse than Marquis's 4.83 to date. Add that into the fact that Loaiza is 36 years old and in the final year of the contract (which is much easier for GM's to swallow and cut) and there's a huge difference between those two situations.

That was him all year long, even when he was hot. But I do agree the next right-handers the Cubs face he needs to sit down for a game or two and catch his breath.

Interesting. I like this lineup against left-handers.

The Pirates are the team keeping Marquis afloat this year. Hopefully he can pitch well against them for the 3rd straight time this year.

Thought that I'd give a little section of the recent Cubs.com article: Soriano is certainly an...interesting individual. Hopefully the threat of possibly going back on the DL is enough for him to test it a little more.

I think I'd rather see the Cubs face Kershaw than Billingsly, even though I really wouldn't want to see either of them.

And it gets even more interesting. Estes' no-no is going and Volquez has 9 K's through 4 but they're in a rain delay. I can't wait for Dusty to bring Volquez back after an hour and a half delay and have him throw 110 pitches. Or just have him throw 110+ just because. He's at 63 through 4 innings. Estes's no-no actually got broken up right before the delay with a Hairston single. And it will be interesting to see if Volquez comes back. They decided to not bring him back the last time there was a rain delay like this when he was at 75 pitches, but that was also only his 2nd start of the year as well.

Interesting pitcher's duel developing in San Diego. Estes has a no-hitter through 4 (only an Adrian Gonzalez error has ruined the perfect game) and Volquez has 7 strikeouts through 3.

It's not too often 3 pitchers from one team have 50+ pitches each, especially in a 9 inning game.

You do realize that Z is 3-4 with an RBI, right? Other pitchers do get hits and RBI's. Yea but is Suppan even a good hitter normally? Maybe he is but the entire STL staff seems to be hitting like Z and Owings when they are not good hitters. He's about at Marquis's level of hitting. Enough that an RBI single isn't really that noteworthy.

And Gameday has officially broke for the moment. It took them forever to load the Theriot play, and is now calling the Lee play just a fielder's choice and not a DP, and now has frozen.

Kosuke has been quite good this year when looking at the total package. It's interesting to wonder how Cubs fans think of him who don't look at the stats as much. On one hand, I'm sure many people share the thought that he should have hit for more power, so they underrate his OBP so far this year. On the other hand, the fact that he's been unbelievable with runners on base this year would have fans tend to overrate him. So it's hard to say. BTW, those splits with nobody on and with runners on: Nobody on: .261/.346/.337 Runners on: .360/.479/.547

Jesus, the Kelvin Sampson era was something else. Did he even ask the kids to go to class? Good to see EJ could end up with him again with the Bucks at the 6th pick. It sounds like everything fell apart in February when Sampson was dismissed. Everybody did decently in their first semester, but second semester once Sampson was gone most of them stopped going to class. Some of them tried to make it up when Crean showed up, but it was too late. I know White and Gordon finished the semester fine as far as academics goes. I think Crean waited until after the semester was over to dismiss Bassett and Ellis hoping they would at least remain eligible, but I'm not sure if he succeeded.

The darkhorse in that equation is Kevin Hart though, who the Cubs left at AAA instead of Ascanio because they wanted him to keep starting. If Hart has another good start in AAA and Gallagher struggles the next time out, they may keep the merry go round spinning.

alive, but on the DL.

That's pretty crazy stuff, but par for the course for Dusty. For Volquez, I don't think they should be too concerned. It has been 7 out of 9 starts of 100+, not 8 out of 9. Really, he's only had 1 stupid number (118 pitches against the Cubs with a huge lead). Other then that, it's been around the 110 pitch mark. With his walk rate, if he pitches effectively that's likely the types of pitch counts he's going to be around most of his career. He turns 25 in a few months. They need to make sure to conserve him with those huge leads (they should have pulled him around the 90 pitch mark in that Cubs game), but he can't be a guy who you try to pull before 100 pitches in close games. Not for a guy who while pitching great right now is averaging 17.12 pitches per inning. With that said, he shouldn't have more than 2 outings all year where he goes over 120, they both have better good reasons for it, and he definitely shouldn't go over 125.

I was thinking about IR the other day and was wondering if there would be a penalty for an upheld call, like there is in the NFL. What would it be? An out? A strike? I don't really think you can penalize there. I'd be in favor of 2 calls per game per team, or every call coming at the discretion of the replay official. There would be no penalty in baseball, but the main reason you lose a timeout in football is to prevent the abuse of coaches intentionally throwing the challenge flag on ridiculous plays just to give their defense a break, or just to call an offensive play without a timeout. In baseball, there are many fewer advantages that stalling can get you. and since there are other legal ways to stall, there won't be much advantage gained by the team issuing the challenge if they lose. So there really isn't any penalty necessary.

I'm surprised that Lou doesn't give him more end of the game at-bats (pinch-hitting and coming into the game defensively). I'm not surprised that he isn't starting him. Cedeno has a few walks and a few bloop singles this month. Granted, his at-bats have been sporadic, but he hasn't been hitting the ball very hard this month, and it shows in his results: .217/.333/.217 Then when you compare Cedeno and the people fighting with him for playing time as far as what types of balls they've hit, Cedeno: 16.4 LD, 41.8 GB, 41.8 FB, .382 BABIP Theriot: 24.5 LD, 49.7 GB, 27.8 FB, .355 BABIP DeRosa: 21.7 LD, 37.5 GB, 40.8 FB, .372 BABIP Fontenot: 26.0 LD, 46.0 GB, 28.0 FB, .286 BABIP Cedeno's had the most balls fall in despite having the fewest linedrives, and the highest fly ball percentage. That isn't normal. I think Cedeno's great new approach at the plate has masked that he has hit a lot of bloops this year, and his sporadic playing time the last couple weeks has masked that he really hasn't played well recently. With that being said, I feel that Lou's riding all the starters a little hard right now. You have two capable middle infielders on the bench, and I'd be using them to make sure two players who have gotten tired in past seasons (DeRosa and Theriot) get regular rest. I know Lou has already said that as the weather heats up, Soto will be sitting more, so I hope that is true for those two as well.

That would be a ridiculous deal for the Bulls. That's about what Hinrich is worth, but getting him outta him would be much more valuable. How is it ridiculous if that's about what he's worth? If you're going to dump him for Rose anyway, I find an extra mid-first round pick to be entirely palatable. I'd think if the Bulls were going to make that trade with Portland, a possibility would be draft Beasley at #1 and maybe go for DJ Augustin or Westbrook at 13. There's actually a decent chance Eric Gordon could be there too. I'm not sure you'll see any of those 3 at 13. I don't think pretty much anybody has Gordon slipping past Milwaukee at 8. The Pacers will almost certainly take 1 of them at 11, and pretty much in all the projections the other one was either taken in the top 10, or Sacramento was very happy to grab them at 12.

Lou repeated before the game last night that they'll try to give him as many at-bats as possible, and threw in there that he really needs to pick it up offensively. The patience is definitely thinning already.