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so is it still Lilly-Z on July 7/8? Yes, it is. Z will end up pitching back to back turns in the rotation on the last game before the break (the 8th) and the first game after the break (the 13th).

Dempster is coming back the game after the All-Star Break. Who is he going to replace? Here is what Lou has to say: So now we have a new date for this process-Lou wants a 12th pitcher by the end of the All-Star break. It says Lou will have to decide what to advise Hendry on as far as what position player that is going to be though as Lou does not know. Does this mean that Gallagher is going to stay up with the team, or are they going to call another reliever in his place? http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070705&content_id=2069124&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

So they like him, but they are afraid to use him back to back right now. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070705&content_id=2069124&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

The rotation after the break will be: Zambrano, Lilly, Marquis, Hill, Marshall http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070705&content_id=2069124&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

Since the start of the White Sox series, the Cubs have gained 4 games on the Cardinals. The Cubs have gone 11-2 The Cardinals have gone 7-6 I'm not too worried about them yet. They have gone 5-2 over their last 7, but I still think the Cubs are the better team and they play the Cardinals enough times to prove that on the field in the second half.

Well, looks like I was 1 run short on my brave prediction-oh well. Come on Howry-make these 4 runs hold up!

Marmol is not the closer-Howry is. Marmol will probably pitch the 8th though.

I know DeRosa is trying to take everybody's job, but he can let other people run too :D

He hasn't gone very deep in the game since coming back from the DL. He's still working his way back. I'd let Floyd hit, and then I'd probably PH for Jacque in this spot. Or you could pinch-hit DeRosa here and then pinch-hit Pagan for Jacque.

He was 2 for 5 in game 1 2-4 in game 2 1-4 in game 3

It's something with the Bergmann-Jones matchup. Jones has had 5 at-bats against him this year, and has 3 doubles and 2 balls that were drilled and caught against the wall with the wind blowing in.

Yeah-they said Rothschild, Hill, and another person or two had been going over a lot of tape between starts but nobody had found anything yet that would indicate he's tipping. It's also interesting to note that apparently Bowen couldn't tell him anything about how the Padres managed to figure him out either.

Well, in my defense, most of the people who started tonight also started against Bergmann in May and did well. Soriano was 2/4 with a double Ramirez was 1/3 with a double Floyd was 1/2 with a BB Jones was 1/3 with a double (and his two flyouts were to the wall-this was the day we thought Jones really was putting it together because he hit 3 balls really hard) Izturis was 1/3 with a double So I may turn out foolish tonight, but it's not out of the question for me to be right :D

I'll be brave and say the Cubs will score 5 tonight.

Lee, Derosa, Theriot, and Bowen are all RHers. Jones instead of Pie though....?!?! Lou said he was going to get Jones in pretty soon here. I guess he doesn't want to get Pie in there until after the break (he won't start Friday or Sunday).

This lineup is not good at all-one note of slight optimism: Jason Bergmann Against LHB: .222/.321/.422 Against RHB: .174/.232/.261 It doesn't make it all better (or probably even close), but at least it's not quite as bad as it appears at first glance.

That's the only thing that concerns me. I don't really care if they shuffle bullpen arms every 2 days-who is it really hurting? I hope this is the last time for Gallagher though before he is up for good. Find another long man that you can bring up during blowouts (or use Cotts when he comes back up from the DL-bringing him up and down won't make much difference to his development, and a long man is only mainly supposed to pitch in blowouts anyway).

Ding, you win I think it's in a little better shape than you are making it out to be. No...it's not. It's pathetic. Agreed. Seems terrible to me, position-player wise. All we have to show for ourselves at the moment are a couple of admittedly eager college prospects with pretty low ceilings and another "toolsy" CF who is, not suprisingly, floudering at the plate. Others we have recently tried out, such as Cedeno & Murton, seem to be close to tanking. And it's been this way for 20 years. I don't see how it could be classified as anything else other than bad. I look across the Illinois/Wisconsin border, and I see a farm system up there that makes us look like idiots. While I won't argue the Cubs have been better at developing players than the Brewers have (because I don't believe they have) looking at position players only obscures your point. In pitchers, the Cubs have a key advantage. Z, Hill and Marshall in the rotation plus Wuertz, Marmol, Ohman, and Gallagher/Petrick in the bullpen compared to Sheets and Gallardo for Milwaukee. That still doesn't make up for the Brewers advantage in position prospects, but it makes up ground (and a large part of the remaining difference has been problems with injuries for the Cubs-Patterson, Wood, Prior, and Guzman having major injuries really hurt the farm system record of success)

At least the Cubs have one good thing against LaRoche, the batter-pitcher matchups: Against Marquis-2/14, 1 HR-.143/.143/.357 Against Lilly-2/6, 1 2B, .333/.333/.500 Against Z-1/11, 3 BB, .091/.267/.091 So he's been terrible against both pitchers who ha has had more than 10 at-bats against, and he hasn't destroyed Lilly.

I guess they wanted a true long man for the next 3 games. Since Dempster is going to be back on Sunday anyway, Gallagher is just being brought up in case one of the starters bomb early.

Marshall for Escobar? Then bring up either Guzman or Gallagher to start? I think I would like that. I'd hope we could enlarge the deal a bit. Marshall + Izturis + cash for Escobar and Reyes or Ascanio. You think Izturis could pull in Ascanio or Reyes? I like both (especially Reyes) but I really doubt Izzy would pull either of them. I think that Vance believes that Marshall is worth more than Escobar. Izzy would be filler to give them a backup SS and then one of those two would make up for the difference in the quality of the centerpiece players.

Thats BS. If anybody was to be added to the roster how in the hell can it not be Young? The guy has a 2 something ERA, hes getting absolutely screwed. There was no discretion in this case apparently. Smoltz was voted in by the players, so they just went to the player who had the next most number of votes, and that was Oswalt.

Unfortunately, I believe you will be proven correct. While Truffle's probably right about a, I'm still holding out a little hope Hendry will find a way to bring in Salty. I don't think we have the players to get Salty especially now that we're playing too well to trade Zambrano. Again, probably right, but his value at least hasn't risen any since he's been iffy at first. Centering a deal around Hill - IF the Braves like him - might be enough, but you're right that it would take quite a bit to get it done. I'm sure the Braves like Hill, especially after watching him dominate their team three times this year (2 earned runs in 23 innings for Hill against the Braves this year).

I doubt Lou has considered moving Soriano back. His offense and defense are both doing really well right now, and I doubt that Lou wants to mess with that. Also, he probably sees Pie's potential gain as better than Murton's at the moment, especially since Murton has been pretty good since his return to the minors but nothing special in that Iowa lineup.

They set the poll to 3 days instead of 2-you might as well just let the poll run until tomorrow when it locks on its own to be fair.