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It seems much more likely that the surprise is that DeRosa will play in RF or at SS tonight. The last thing the Cubs need is another second baseman-they already have DeRosa, who already is a little above average second baseman, Fontenot, who Lou says deserves to play also, along with Patterson in AAA.

Nope, there is nothing yet. There is going to be a roster move today, that's been pretty confirmed, so the fact that they haven't done it yet does at least suggest that management hopes there will be a trade to clear space before the game. It will just have to be seen if they get one done or not.

I'd like to see the trend continue. I'm not sure how they should handle the Hill situation (being he is out of options), but I'd like to see Patterson, Cedeno, Soto and Murton brought up. If they could form a good supporting cast for Ramirez, Lee and Soriano, along with Pie, Fontenot, Theriot and DeRosa, might as well get them playing together sooner rather than later. Send Jones, Eyre, Izturis packing and figure out what to do with Koyie Hill, and it would be a done deal. Of course, that pushes the pitching staff back to 11, but I think that's where they should be anyway. You have to figure the Cubs will need to go cheap with new ownership coming in. That's what a lot of new owners do. If they could get Zambrano signed for what it costed for Barrett, Eyre, Jones and Izturis, they wouldn't necessarily be upping salary that much for 2008. You would have to find another player to get rid of-the Cubs are at 11 pitchers right now, and dropping Eyre, Jones, Izturis and Hill for Patterson, Cedeno, Soto, and Murton would only leave them at 10 pitchers. Also there would be 5 middle infielders on that roster.

Isn't that the guy who gave him a backloaded 3/16 deal? If you don't make fun of him for a week, I'll pick up the slack. The whole Jacque signing is contingent on this trade. If Hendry manages to get a decent player and/or relief from the contract, then the signing goes in the books as a decent one, possibly even a pretty good one. If he can't and Jacque continues to be a liability on this team and the Cubs keep paying his contract, the signing can quickly become a bad one, even with him being a pretty decent bargain last year.

Who are the Brewers scheduled to face when the Cubs are facing Pitt and Wash? Unfortunately, they also face the Pirates and the Nationals. All the Cubs can do is beat up on those two teams though, and if the Brewers do the same at least the Cubs should be quite a bit closer in the WC race at that point.

Colvin, too Kind of off to a rough start in AA huh. Still don't understand why they promoted him so soon without even coming close to dominating high A. He might not have been dominating, but he had the 13th best OPS in his entire league while playing an excellent CF, so I would say that was close to dominating, especially when you consider that he was closer to 7th as he was to 14th. It's probably a little aggresive, but the things he needs to work on it will probably be better to work on in AA than High A. I imagine he'll struggle in AA for the while-in fact, he'll probably just start to figure it out at the end of this season and the beginning of next season at AA, but that's just fine. It's going to be hard to work on things that you're not good at (improving plate discipline, K/BB) while facing better pitching and tougher competition. He should have stayed at high-A for a while longer. I happen to disagree on that, but that's fine. I just think it's hard to convince a player to be more patient when he's having good success being aggressive. If he continues to struggle in AA, and the coaches tell him to be more patient, I think it will be a lot easier for him to incorporate that into his game, and come out on the other side a better ballplayer for it. Which is right probably depends on Colvin's mindset and mental side that none of us know for sure. Is he easily coachable? Can he bounce back from failure and work through it, or will failure start to make him swing at everything? Those things are hard to tell without knowing him well, so I am not sure that my opinion is the correct one without knowing all the facts.

How in the world is that close to dominating? The guy with the best numbers is dominating. The guys ranked 2nd and 3rd are dominating. The guy with the 14th best OPS is not dominating. Maybe we just have different definitions of dominating then. I'll rephrase-he was one of the best players in his league this year, especially considering the position that he plays.

And add to that defense that seems to be getting better. He looks to be much more comfortable in the field now that his hamstring isn't bothering him as much, and his arm is a great weapon both in throwing runners out and holding runners from taking extra bases (especially runners coming around 3rd-my guess is that at least 4-5 runners have been stranded on third in the past couple months after being held on a single to left field not wanting to test Soriano).

Guzman has been to throw again in Mesa. I haven't heard any word on when he might go out for a rehab assignment.

Colvin, too Kind of off to a rough start in AA huh. Still don't understand why they promoted him so soon without even coming close to dominating high A. He might not have been dominating, but he had the 13th best OPS in his entire league while playing an excellent CF, so I would say that was close to dominating, especially when you consider that he was closer to 7th as he was to 14th. It's probably a little aggresive, but the things he needs to work on it will probably be better to work on in AA than High A. I imagine he'll struggle in AA for the while-in fact, he'll probably just start to figure it out at the end of this season and the beginning of next season at AA, but that's just fine.

That was an awesome tape. The only thing that I would have liked to seen otherwise was what happened when they finally explained it and realized what happened. I wish the tape would have continued to show that, because it would have been really funny to see their change in attitude from the end of the previous half inning.

Unless they hear the appeal on Thursday, Lee will not miss the Brewers series (which is not likely at all).

I think the Cubs have a chance without any major acquisitions, but I'm not sure it's a solid one (1 in 4 like Truffle pointed out might be reasonable). They are playing much better because of a few reasons 1) Marshall and Z becoming good in the rotation, while only Marquis has been really struggling lately, 2) Howry and Marmol have both stepped up in the bullpen, 3) Pie in center, Fontenot at 2nd now (allows DeRosa to move around without having both Theriot and Izturis in the lineup) The Cubs could improve those odds internally by making 1 or more of the following moves, from the most important to the least important: 1) Move either DeRosa or Fontenot at SS. Backup plan is bring up Cedeno to play SS. 2) After Murton has a couple more (hopefully productive) weeks at AAA, bring him back up and try the Murton/Floyd thing again (and this time Murton will hopefully hit, and if he hits he'll get more and more playing time). 3) Bring up Soto to work with Bowen at C. Any of those would improve the Cubs chances, and of course a major move would help their chances even more. They aren't out of it yet though, in the division or in the WC. Those

If they do make a deal today, either Hendry is working late or they did a really good job of not letting it leak. Well, the SD deal does show that GM's do work strange hours. It was reported at 6:30 in the morning SD time. As for Hendry, for all his faults, one thing that cannot be said is that he does not devote his life to the job. I think this offseason demonstrated that, and it wouldn't surprise me if he's working the trade lines right now, even if nothing ends up getting done.

That makes sense from what he was describing. I wonder how sick he will get, and if he can keep playing or not. Get better soon Mark. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070624&content_id=2046554&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

Talking what to do about the second base logjam: And here's a quote about Fontenot: Well, let's see. If Fontenot is going to continue to play, and DeRosa is going to be put somewhere, that means 1 of only two things. Either DeRosa is going to play RF (which I can see him doing tomorrow night) or one of DeRosa/Fontenot is going to move to short. Since Lou hints at a surprise, I hope that in the next week one of those two will be seen at short, since of course the DeRosa to RF thing has been talked about a lot. That's the only thing that makes sense to me that could be labeled a surprise at all. If one of those two does move to SS, the Cubs become a lot better offensively. Since tomorrow night is a left-hander, I think we'll have to wait a few days to see how this shakes out against right-handers and left-handers. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070624&content_id=2046554&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

Of course, Hendry could overrule him or there could be a trade of some sort to get that reliever as well. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070624&content_id=2046554&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

Barrett and Bowen have both had bad starts with their new teams: Bowen-1/9 with 1R, 1RBI, 3 BB and 4 K Barrett (after the 0/4 day so far today)-2/12 with 1 RBI and 3 K

How many real teams are there in the NL? There's a total of 5 teams that are 3 games above .500 or more-and the Brewers are one of them. So that's only 4 of 15 other teams that they face that are "real", and none of them are in their division so they don't face any of them that often.

Right now, I just care about the Cubs winning the division (or the WC). If it takes 90, fine. If it takes 85 or less, I'm plenty happy with that as well. How the Brewers do over the next month has a big impact on if the Cubs are in the race or out of the race at the deadline (of course, what the Cubs do has a bigger impact). Is there even a chance at that?I havent seen the WC standings but Im guessing we are pretty far back 7th place in the WC entering the day, 8 back. There's only 2 teams near the top though, everybody else is within 3 to 3 1/2 games of the Cubs, so it's doable if the Cubs take advantage of their soft schedule coming up. BTW, if either San Diego or Arizona lose today, the Cubs will only be 7 back in the WC race after today.

Right now, I just care about the Cubs winning the division (or the WC). If it takes 90, fine. If it takes 85 or less, I'm plenty happy with that as well. How the Brewers do over the next month has a big impact on if the Cubs are in the race or out of the race at the deadline (of course, what the Cubs do has a bigger impact).

Marshall was throwing fine, and Dempster is not available. This was a dumb change. didn't the sox go like 1-66 against someone's bullpen last week? not saying he shoulda pulled him, but going from a soft tossing lefty to a hard throwing righty might just put the dagger in a team that clearly can't adjust to new pitchers. they weren't doing crap against the guy who was in there already hey, i said i didn't agree with the choice, but i can see where they got their inclination to do so. we also don't know if marshall said something to lou or larry when he was in the dugout last time. he didn't seem to argue too much when lou came out for him. That is very, very true. Marshall was neither surprised or upset. They had hit 3 or 4 warning track flyouts the last few outs, so maybe he told them he simply didn't have much left in the tank, or maybe they decided it themselves and he just agreed.

He pitched an inning yesterday, and before that had 3 straight days off.

He came in as a pinch runner for Ramirez in the 9th on Friday, but that's it.

The headline of the Daytona article is one of my pet peeves- The Cubs loose 5 straight? How are you a newspaper writer (or a headline writer) and you don't know how to write the word lose? I see lose spelled as loose on the Internet all the time as well. Normally, spelling mistakes don't bother me, but it's such a short, easy word.