CubColtPacer

Wuertz should at least start the next inning, if not pitch the 8th.

Are you on the Cubs payroll? Ive never seen you disagree with anything the Cubs or Lou do lol LOL-I've disagreed with some things (like Dempster becoming starter-I was vocally very against that move) but on moves that I think can go either way, I like to present the other side of the argument. Since most of the time people say the Cubs are so wrong in making all these moves, my other side seems like I support them more than I do. Personally, I would have kept Hill in, but it's a very close decision and I'm not upset that he was taken out either.

From the way they've been used recently, Guzman is one of the setup men (with Wuertz and Howry). Marmol is the long man.

Remember also that in the 6th inning they got several good swings off of Hill-he certainly wasn't assured of continuing to pitch a shutout either.

I thought the pitch on Izturis was ball 4, but after seeing the strike 1 call on Theriot in the same spot, I'm not so sure now.

I don't even know where Izturis was going with that pitch-he's much better at pitches on the outer half of the plate. He had to either walk or figure out a way to get Murton home there-and swinging at that pitch was not that.

What a tough division! Is it me or is this game an hour late for a getaway game? Sunday games rarely start before 1:00 local time. If this were a Thursday game getaway day, it probably would start at 3:10 EDT rather than 4:10, but not on a Sunday.

Aramis with a scheduled day off against a left-hander? This should be interesting-that probably makes the lineup today: 1-Soriano 2-Theriot 3-Lee 4-DeRosa 5-Barrett 6-Murton 7-Izturis 8-Pagan That order could be way off though. 4/5/6 are interchangeable, as is 7/8. Also, if Soriano moves down the order (which I doubt a little bit with just an off day), Theriot moves up to the top slot, Pagan into the 2 spot, and Soriano probably in the 4 slot with the rest of the order the same.

3 things: 1) With Milwaukee playing so poorly, it seems a bit premature to give up on the season right now. If the Cubs bullpen shakes out a little bit of the dead weight and they put the arms in the proper order, this team will be right in it. 2) Cabrera is not a free agent until after the 2009 season. 3) Aramis has a NTC.

I hate to say it, but I beginning to think Theriot might suck. He only appears to be a slightly better hitter then Iz, and he has no range. I would keep Iz at SS and at the 8 spot everyday, and then figure out who the super sub is between Dero and Ryan. In each of his last 3 seasons in the minors, his OBP was .367, .365, .367. So he's got that going for him, which is a heck of a lot more than Izturis can say. That translates to, what, .335 in the bigs? Izturis' defense might just be enough to make up that difference. I'd say there's an argument to be made that they are about equal players. I didnt look today but Izturis OBP is up to something like .325. Which not great is better than Jones and Barrett. He has been quite abit better than Theriot this month. I am not a big fan of Izturis but if he can have a .325 OBP for the year that would be pretty solid if he quits making errors. I think his defense has gotten a lot better this month also-in April, everybody was cringing about if he'd throw it wide every time. Lately, pretty much every time the throw is right to the glove, with a stronger arm than he showed earlier in the season (although not as strong as he used to have). BTW, his OBP sits at .331 at the end of the day today.

I wondered if he might have a nagging injury as well, but the most likely answer is that Theriot is going through a cold streak, and DeRosa and Izturis have both played much better than him the past 2 weeks.

silly. so i guess Lou can only use Ohman when his psychic or ouiji board tell him that the other manager isnt going to pinch hit. So the situation to use Ohman now is day games only, with 1 man on not in scoring position, lefty coming to the plate and the opposing manager wont let pinch hit for him. Good to have him available just in that case. :roll: Wrong. :roll: There was righthanded hitter in the opposing dugout who is a better hitter than the guy at the plate. Kent has a 311/394/518/912 line against LHP the past three years, and has been hot, with a 1.531 OPS in the past week. On the other hand, Gonzalez has a 272/369/473/842 line against RHP from 2004-06, and has been even worse than that in 2006 and the first part of 2007. Being as it's obviously a key situation in the game, do you want your closer pitching against Luis Gonzalez, or Ohman pitching against Jeff Kent? Anybody with half a brain (apparently this doesn't include Lou Piniella) knew that Kent would hit for Gonzalez there, so you're weighing those two options. I'd prefer Dempster against the weaker hitter, and so would anybody with an ounce of common sense. Bring Dempster in to face a left-hander in a key spot? That's just as bad or worse as bringing in Ohman to face a right-hander. Here are their 3 year splits: Ohman vs RHB: .239/.349/.369 Dempster vs LHB: .286/.394/.401 BTW, Luis Gonzalez is 10 for 18 career against Dempster with a double, 2 home runs, 3 walks, and 0 K's-a .556/.636/.944 line for his career. Interestingly enough, Gonzalez is 4/6 against Ohman with 2 doubles, a home run, and a walk, but since Ohman is a LOOGY they put Kent in, who is now 0 for 3 with a walk against Ohman. Ohman against Kent is not a good matchup, but Dempster vs Gonzalez is not a good matchup at all.

Are you serious? Not really-there's a small buyout in 2009. He's signed through next year, and then they almost certainly will let him go (unless he somehow has a career year in 2008, then they might consider it (for right or wrong)).

No-this would be 3 out of his last 4 he hasn't started. Since May 2nd though, Theriot has dropped 90 points in OPS-maybe Izturis shouldn't be in there, but Theriot isn't exactly much of an improvement. I wouldn't mind if Theriot was in there whatsoever, but the middle IF so far is DeRosa>>>>>Theriot>Izturis.

Theriot hasn't been great this year though-and not very good lately (5 for his last 30 with 2 BB's). In fact, he has only been marginally better than Izturis so far this year.

Yeah-Izturis's OBP has actually slipped just below his SLG now, but the Cubs still have 2 players who's OBP is above their SLG-Ward with a .465 OBP and a .424 SLG, and Theriot with a .350 OBP and a .345 SLG.

It's still a pretty large difference. Last year the Cubs has 2842 at-bats during day games. The next highest total from anyone in the majors was Oakland and San Francisco tied at 2086 at-bats. That's still a massive disparity. As far as the day games cause more trouble for the Cubs than the others, I have no idea what to think about that. If there is an effect, than it is worse for the Cubs (even though both teams have to play in the same conditions, for the Cubs it is the cumulative effect throughout the season that builds up). I'm not sure I believe that there is any effect at all to build up though.

Being in 2nd place by being 4 games under .500 is nothing to brag about. I don't think he meant it in a bragging way, he's just saying that even though the team has been terrible, they still only have to catch one team that is also similarly struggling lately. If they were in 5th place, it would be a much harder road to have 4 teams in front of them play badly-right now they just need the one to keep scuffling and for them to hit some kind of winning streak.

He hasn't rarely batted leadoff. In fact, he has batted leadoff most of his career. He has 2186 at-bats in the leadoff spot, and the next highest number from any spot is 630 from the 3rd spot.

I actually had a post earlier today that was going to compare what Hendry did this past offseason and what the board would have done with the money, but it disappeared before it was finished, and I didn't want to repeat the whole thing. Needless to say, this team is a lot better today with Derosa instead of Giles or Durham, Soriano instead of Drew, Marquis and Lilly instead of Schmidt, Westbrook, or Padilla. The only one that the board was completely right on was Blanco. At the same time, if this team still doesn't win with that great offseason that just says how horrible the team was before, which might get Hendry fired anyway.

Does the Abreu contract still have his NTC? He refused to go anywhere but a select group of teams last year without a huge extension-is there any sense that this fact would be different now?

Who on earth said that? The same guys who said Brownlie threw a 97 MPH curve? Here's one: I've seen others like that, so I'm not just going by the word of that source alone, but that's an example. http://www.baseball-fever.com/archive/index.php/t-39433.html

What does Marshall top out at? His sinker can get up to the upper 80s right? not bad for a lefty. And considering "velocity" is a quantum defining speed and direction (not just speed alone), I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. I've seen wildly varying reports on his sinker. Most reports I've seen have him between 89-91 on his sinker, with some reports claiming he can touch 95 at his upper limit with it. Just about every thing I've looked at has said the same thing though "power sinker" "hard sinker", etc.-so this scouting report isn't much different.

I thought I'd put this in this game thread, but it applies to more than that: Piniella on how the offense can become more consistent: So Piniella isn't just ignoring it as a problem-he just hasn't been able to fix it yet (and he will only be able to fix it to a degree with the current roster). http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070524&content_id=1983984&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

where were you when Murton was 2-3 with a walk yesterday? give me a break I know he's had a few games this year, but he's had a bunch of really crappy starts, and he seems completey useless coming off the bench.[/quote He actually has been better pinch-hitting than anything: 3 for 11 with 1 BB, .272/.333/.636 All his other at-bats .284/.341/.333 That 3-run homer all of a sudden made his pinch hitting #'s look good. Yeah, I was about to mention that-it actually made all of his numbers look better. That 1 HR is the only difference between Murton and Izturis's numbers so far this year.