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Howry's last 7 outings: 8 1/3 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 6K/1BB Howry being good again really transforms this bullpen-combine him with Wuertz, Dempster, and Marmol, and the back end of the bullpen is pretty strong now.

It wasn't a walkoff-it was a 3 run homerun in the same game that Barrett's grand slam was.

I'm a bit surprised about the no Pie, but after 8-9 straight games it's all right to give him a day off, and a left-hander is the correct time to do that. Everyone else looks just about right against a LHP.

except, of course, the Cubs are playing a team that is better than they are well, hill is better than washburn, and judging by expected W-L, the cubs and mariners are about even. I really don't think the Mariners are a good team. I talked to a Mariners fan a day or two ago, and he doesn't think they are either. He said they are enjoying the run they are on right now, but that all the fans are waiting for the lack of talent on the team to show itself, and that nobody expects anything out of this club. Hopefully it's in the next 3 days here that their fall starts.

I agree with the other names (especially Guerrero and Beltran) but Magglio Ordonez? 7 years, over 100 million dollars, and he put these 2 lines up his first two years in Detroit: .302/.359/.436 (in only 82 games) .298/.350/.477 He wouldn't have been able to put up his monster season that he is this year in Chicago, because people would have wanted him traded already for making that much money for that little production. In fact, Burnitz's 2005 and Jones's 2006 are roughly comparable to Magglio's first 2 years, and they cost 20 million dollars less over that time. Magglio is also 33 with injury problems, and so the later years of that deal will not be pretty. So Vladimir and Beltran-yes, the Cubs should have gone after one of those. Magglio? It would have been a terrible signing, amazing year he's having so far this year or not.

Why are they moving a guy that has value at 2b to LF, where he'll have much less, if any value? Iowa is filled with guys who are alternating between positions right now. They want to get Patterson's bat up to the majors faster, but they don't think they can have a bench spot for him if he only plays 2B because he struggles quite a bit with 2B defensively, and so they are trying him in LF from time to time.

that's ok, he'll start again tonight Jones has started 13 of the 15 games where the opposing starter was a lefty. Unfortunately, he'll probably start again tonight. That cannot be right Fred. In fact, I just looked it up, and it's the opposite. Jones has only started 2 times out of the 15 games that the Cubs have had against left-handers. One was the time in May where Jones started against a left-hander and the next day Pagan came up to start against the next one, and the other time was last week when Floyd and Murton were both hurt.

If he liked Ballplayers he would play Murton insteas of Jones and Floyd. He's as old school as we thought. And just becuase he's better than Dusty doesn't make him good. Is Murton hurt? Looking at all of Lou's moves so far this year, the whole Murton situation seems out of place. Murton is the type of ballplayer that you would think Lou would love. My guess is that there is more behind the scenes than we are privy to. I think Lou and Hendry want guys with more pop in their bat in the outfield to drive in non-existent base runners. It's what the old school manager would do. Meanwhile, neither Jones nor Floyd are hitting the ball out of the park, or hitting the ball for that matter. Floyd's not hitting the ball? I posted this in the other thread: Murton (116 AB's)-.259/.338/.345 Floyd (111 AB's)-.306/.364/.423 So Floyd has been over 100 points of OPS better than Murton, and yet played less than him. Right now, Floyd's the guy who should be playing more if Lou wants to play guys who have produced. I agree with you completely with Jones-if Murton is not hurt, then Lou absolutely should not be starting Jones in RF.

The batter pitcher matchups do not look pretty. Soriano is 4 for 25 with 1 HR, 1 BB, and 5 K's Izturis is 3 for 11 with 1 2B and 1 K Floyd is 1 for 10 with 5 K Jones is 3 for 10 with 1 2B and 1 K Derosa is 2 for 9 with 1 2B, 1 BB, and 1 K Barrett 0 for 3, Ward 0 for 2, Ramirez 0 for 2

It's not that they've performed better, it's that they've gotten a chance to perform. But even that has been out of a lot of necessity for Lou. Lou should get more credit than that. He still has the option to play JJ over Pie in CF and Izturis over Theriot or Fontenot at either MI position. Dusty would have forced the veterans even when it seemed like it wasn't possible, by plugging Macias at any position. Fine, but it would be hard to play the young guys any less than Dusty played them, so I don't know how much credit there is to give. Lou is better at it than Dusty, but being better than the worst isn't exactly a benchmark to get too excited about. Lou still doesn't give Murton the playing time he should be getting to develop, he still plays Izturis far more than he should, and if you recall, Pie was sent back down for a chunk of time because Lou was hardly playing him. It's only when the veterans are very clearly failing to produce that he's gone to the young guys, and even then the vets still get a good amount of starts. Pie stopped playing because the player in front of him was out-playing him. The same has happened to Murton until the last week (Jones should not be starting consistently in front of him, but Floyd has been better). As far as Izturis-yes, Izturis has started more in the last month than would have liked, but a lot of that was due to necessity-Theriot has had to play another position quite a bit over that time due to injury/days off/etc. Izturis has started 19 times out of the last 29 games. If you take all the days that Theriot was not playing another position and could have replaced him, that takes away 7 of those starts. Sprinkle in 3 off days for Theriot during that time, and it means that Izturis has started a total of 4 times where he wasn't either an injury replacement or giving a day off to Theriot in the last month. 4 games like that is a little annoying, but not a big deal. As far as even when the young guys who are producing still give up a fair amount of starts to the veterans, I disagree with that as well. Pie has started 9 games in a row now. When Theriot was producing, he was getting just as many starts as DeRosa was. When they stopped producing is when the veterans started stealing their starts again. First of who is outplaying Murton in RF? Secondly, when was Murton given the amount of starts in a row like Jones has been given to try and find it? Floyd is outplaying Murton in RF in the same amount of time that Murton has had: Murton (116 AB's)-.259/.338/.345 Floyd (111 AB's)-.306/.364/.423 Against RH's, the order should be Floyd/Murton/Jones Against LH's, it should be Murton/Floyd/Jones

It's not that they've performed better, it's that they've gotten a chance to perform. But even that has been out of a lot of necessity for Lou. Lou should get more credit than that. He still has the option to play JJ over Pie in CF and Izturis over Theriot or Fontenot at either MI position. Dusty would have forced the veterans even when it seemed like it wasn't possible, by plugging Macias at any position. Fine, but it would be hard to play the young guys any less than Dusty played them, so I don't know how much credit there is to give. Lou is better at it than Dusty, but being better than the worst isn't exactly a benchmark to get too excited about. Lou still doesn't give Murton the playing time he should be getting to develop, he still plays Izturis far more than he should, and if you recall, Pie was sent back down for a chunk of time because Lou was hardly playing him. It's only when the veterans are very clearly failing to produce that he's gone to the young guys, and even then the vets still get a good amount of starts. Pie stopped playing because the player in front of him was out-playing him. The same has happened to Murton until the last week (Jones should not be starting consistently in front of him, but Floyd has been better). As far as Izturis-yes, Izturis has started more in the last month than would have liked, but a lot of that was due to necessity-Theriot has had to play another position quite a bit over that time due to injury/days off/etc. Izturis has started 19 times out of the last 29 games. If you take all the days that Theriot was not playing another position and could have replaced him, that takes away 7 of those starts. Sprinkle in 3 off days for Theriot during that time, and it means that Izturis has started a total of 4 times where he wasn't either an injury replacement or giving a day off to Theriot in the last month. 4 games like that is a little annoying, but not a big deal. As far as even when the young guys who are producing still give up a fair amount of starts to the veterans, I disagree with that as well. Pie has started 9 games in a row now. When Theriot was producing, he was getting just as many starts as DeRosa was. When they stopped producing is when the veterans started stealing their starts again.

Yes, he is, but he's starting at 2B for somebody who is light on other second basemen (or third basemen for that matter) and I doubt he'd give him up for anything less than a king's ransom.

I actually tried to pick up Lidge yesterday-I was about an hour too late. I have still decided to make the move though-I need a boost to get back in this, and Wright might be a big help in that.

In my fantasy league, I have a trade offer. I am currently in 3rd place. My pitching has carried me-I am in the top 5 of the 10 teams in saves, ERA, WHIP, and wins. My hitting has been dragging me down in the areas of runs, HR, and RBI's. The worst position I have is 3B, where I have the struggling Garrett Atkins and Mark Teahan as my third basemen. With that said, somebody has offered me David Wright for Atkins and K-Rod. That would leave me with Todd Jones and Bob Wickman to close, although I still have both an excess of good starting pitching that I can try to trade for a reliever, or an extra roster spot where I can pick up-um-Alfonseca. Is Wright worth it to make the deal and hope that I can find a reliever somewhere else?

So why did his velocity suddenly go up during the middle of that supposed overworking? It would make sense for it to start going down, but instead, it has gotten better over that stretch. Plus his arm troubles that everyone thought for sure he was injured earlier in the season doesn't look like an injury now. Because he knew his day was almost done. Starters don't throw max effort when they know they have to get thru 6-7 innings. He needed to get through 2 batters and gave all that he had for a short period of time. I meant over that stretch of starts. He was throwing low 90's max the first month and a half. Now, he's hitting 96 and 97 at times and holding in the low 90's consistently. So he's thrown a ton of pitches in his starts, and his velocity has actually increased from start to start while he's doing that. A random question-does anybody know which season was the last year that Z stopped regularly throwing in the winter? I knew for a while he'd throw several games in the winter leagues-when did that stop (for example, I know he threw only 1 or 2 this offseason max)

So why did his velocity suddenly go up during the middle of that supposed overworking? It would make sense for it to start going down, but instead, it has gotten better over that stretch. Plus his arm troubles that everyone thought for sure he was injured earlier in the season doesn't look like an injury now.

I don't see any reason why he wouldn't. It's the pattern of his whole season-1 terrible outing followed by several good outings. He hasn't given up runs in consecutive outings yet this season (and I certainly hope he doesn't start now!).

I have to think he'll let him pitch at least part of the 8th, with Ohman coming in if Z gets in a little trouble and a good left-hander comes up.

Woody Williams is one of those pitchers that somebody like Soriano inexplicably struggles against-he's 2 for 15 against him now. None of the others are very good either, but that one's just strange.

Not quite, but close. Fontenot has more power, Theriot has more D.

Ziggy's not the only one who got accidentally left out (although I think the others problem was that they didn't make it to the list after signing up). It was a little crazy in that thread, and Derwood did the best job he could. Nobody has complained, so until Ziggy comes up and says something I would just leave things as they are. I haven't seen him around and he hasn't said anything about it, so I doubt it's a big deal to him.

huh. well I had 64 people sign up.....who the heck did I leave out then? I think you left out ZiggyTaxi.

That's because if you look at the list of 64, he's not even on there! I'll try to figure out the person who's actually on the list who didn't get in the tournament.

You are incorrect. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070611&content_id=2019342&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc The newspaper is wrong. I both saw it with my own eyes, and every single Game tracker has it as a 2-0 count as well. I'm looking at one right now that shows exactly where the first two pitchers were high of the strike zone.

They were already pretty much there. Soriano pinch-hit on his 6th game gone. Aramis has already missed 4 games, so he would have had to pinch-hit tomorrow and start Wednesday to come back even as fast as Soriano did. I kind of expected this from the beginning-the way they were saying that he might play Tuesday or Wednesday on Friday and Saturday just told me they weren't very confident in his return. It's better to be conservative with him though rather than have him come back and get hurt again. This is going to be interesting-there's quite a potential for Ward, Blanco, and Ramirez to come back around the same time-there will be some roster decisions to be made by then.