CubColtPacer

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.

probably the mets. piazza's indicating that was the best time of his career. It's not up to Piazza, though. It's the Hall that decides. that's incorrect, it's up to the player That changed. Now the player gets some say, but the Hall can and has chosen differently than the players wanted. The Hall has the final say. Here's a good example of that from 5 years ago. Clemens threatened to boycott his HOF ceremony if they don't put him in as a Yankee: http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0615/1568234.html

Colvin is 0/1 with 3 walks tonight.

I'd rather have Theriot 2nd, Fukudome 5th, and Edmonds 7th than Fukudome 2nd, Edmonds 5th, and Theriot 8th. I consider the dropoff from Edmonds moving up more significant than any benefit that moving Fukudome up causes.

He is very predictable..but he wasn't pulling the ball when he was doing well, as this hit chart indicates: http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/individual_player_hitting_chart.jsp?playerID=444135&statType=1 He grounds out to left field, he flies out to right field. Most of his hits are to either center field or some to right field, with a couple doubles down each line. And he hadn't really cooled off before last night. Here are his last 10 games: May 10th: 2 for 4 May 11th: 1 for 3, 1 BB May 12th: 2 for 3, 2 BB May 13th: 1 for 4 May 14th: 2 for 4, 1 BB May 15th: 0 for 3 May 16th: 1 for 3, 1 2B, 1 BB May 17th: 2 for 5 May 19th: 2 for 5, 1 2B May 20th: 0 for 4 His numbers before the last 10 games: .321/.395/.412 His numbers now: .325/.401/.408

Piniella said that it would be 1-2 more starts for Marshall to build up the stamina necessary to come up to the majors. It sounds like he really wants Marshall in the rotation though, at least until Hill comes back.

show me that part of rule 5 I can't find much either way, but here's something: http://texas.rangers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060306&content_id=1336732&vkey=news_tex&fext=.jsp&c_id=tex

I'd like to see us be able to hit Sampson for once. He has a 1.25 ERA career against us in 21 2/3 innings, and did a pretty good job against us earlier this year (6 2/3 IP, 2 R). He's not going to walk very many people at all, around 2 BB's per 9 innings. Against teams other than the Cubs, he's pitched 32 1/3 innings, given up 49 hits, and had an ERA of 7.16. So whatever it is with this guy Cubs, just find a way to hit him. He's obviously throwing extremely hittable pitches.

Does this mean that Eyre finally did something good for us? Other then the fact that in his last 26 2/3 innings pitched for the Cubs, he has a 0.67 ERA, I guess you could say he finally did something good :D I do feel bad for Fox, but teams cannot afford to tiptoe around the fragility of his arm considering his age and ability level. I just don't understand what Chad Fox was here for. They didn't trust him to throw an inning in a close game unless the bullpen was tired. He couldn't really work on consecutive days. He wasn't really the long man, despite high pitch counts in his outings. Hopefully they have the faith to bring in Ascanio a little more often then they did Fox.

Unfortunately they've been winning with this. Hasn't Michael Borne had an unusually high percentage of big games against the Cubs? I don't like the term Cub killer, but the way I am remembering things, he seems to be on his way to being one. He's had 15 career plate appearances against the Cubs with a .214/.267/.357 line. He has 2 stolen bases.

I would have liked to have waited until the next right-hander on the mound to sit Theriot for Cedeno, but he did need a day off. Theriot shouldn't really start more than 145 games in a season. He should get a day off every 10 days or so.

Sounds like it's happening: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-080517-chicago-cubs-pittsburgh-pirates,1,2192665.story I'm sure Ward's available, but they're also probably pretty hesitant to use him tomorrow. First, you don't want him hurting his back worse on one pinch-hitting appearance, and also if he doesn't hit tomorrow, they can officially start his DL time at last Wednesday rather than Monday, allowing him to come off sooner if he feels better.

And why are we benching DeRosa tomorrow, who just had a day off on Thursday and has been quite hot the last 8 games he's started? plus derosa's 3 year splits against LHP are .314/.385/.509/.894. I didnt realise this guy was a lefty. Soriano Cedeno Soto Ramirez Lee Fuku Edmonds DeRosa Marcrap Edmonds can't hit left-handers, so there's no reason to put him in there against a lefty. And Theriot is so much better against left-handers than right-handers that you really shouldn't bench him against a left-hander. Not to mention that Cedeno in the major leagues has actually been better against right-handers than left-handers every single year including this one. Finding Cedeno a start should come against a right-hander, not a left-hander.