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DeRosa sounds a little banged up-he probably will get the day off tonight. If Lee does at well, this is probably the lineup: Theriot Murton or Floyd Soriano Ramirez Ward Barrett Jones Izturis It could really be anything though. The main thing is that whatever left-handers are in there, Lou is going to try to split them, which helps figure out the lineup order a little bit easier.

I wouldn't say a long shot. I don't really see our 'Pen getting any better. Cotts and Wuertz should be moved into the setup roles. Howry needs to be used cautiously until he figures it out. He's been too consistently good/great over the last several years to write him off. Ohman is great as a LOOGY. Eyre can be hidden earlier in games. Demp has been pretty good so far. The pieces are there. The pen just needs to be re-organized. I think Howry has figured it out for the most part. He looked absolutely awful the other day, but before that he had only given up 2 runs of his own in the past 11 appearances (13 2/3 innings-and both runs were in the same game), and I believe only one inherited run in that time (Dmitri Young single). That's a really good stretch, and I don't think an awful outing necessarily means he has lost it again. I agree with your other assesments.

Yeah, it wasn't Wuertz's fault It was, but why after all year of Jason pitching well to Barrett did we deside to change things? For the sake of it? We sure could have used Barretts bat. Why did we let Marquis go two whole innings after it was obvious to even Dusty in the booth he had lost it? Why did we let Wuertz, who needed a map, pitch to all those hitters? I guess we built such a big lead we can afford to give games away. 1) Blanco was about due for a start-he was going to have to start sometime in this series, and he had good numbers against Glavine, so he might as well have started today. 2) Marquis pitched well in the 2 innings after he had "lost it". His 2 runners in the 6th he gave up were a bloop single that Soriano should have had and then a clean single to left. Plus, you want to remove Marquis in the 4th and turn it over to the bullpen? That almost definitely would have been worse than what Marquis did. 3)This one is tougher. Lou has been heavily criticized for taking out Wuertz when he couldn't get anywhere near the plate in a couple of his recent appearances, and now he's criticized again for leaving him in. I would have taken him out, but I understand why he left him in-if the reliever manages to get the game into extras, the Cubs are going to need all the relievers they can have.

I'm a little shocked Glavine is batting here-he's at 95 pitches and isn't exactly cruising.

Murton's in the 5 spot because of his power potential. Same with Soriano at 3, and DeRosa at 6. Izturis has a better OBP than Ramirez, Jones, Floyd, Blanco, and Barrett this year-while he shouldn't be considered at all for the 2 spot on a normal day, he's probably the best 2 spot option today.

First change I would expect from your lineup is that Pagan will be in CF, not Jones. Pretty much everybody on the lineup has a chance to be in the lineup now-Blanco, Izturis, or Ward all have decent shots of being in the lineup.

Dusty won't be doing it. In another thread (I believe in Baseball Discussions) he said that he wouldn't be doing any Cubs games this year. Dusty posts here? Yeah. His screen name is "jersey cubs fan." That's the first thing that popped into my head :D

No-3 day games, 2 night games.

That first idea about the 3rd time in a game simply is not very feasible. That limits to a pitcher to 6 innings max, and most pitchers around 4. There probably would have to be 8 starters piggy-backing off of one another with 3-4 arms left in the pen. It has a chance of working, but that requires finding a lot of arms that can even go that long, which is much harder than a traditional pitching staff.

That doesn't necessarily mean though that Soriano has had far fewer chances though-part of it is because that Soriano hasn't come through in those chances so far: Soriano: Nobody on (87 AB's)-.333/.370/.563 RISP (17 AB's)-.294/.368/.412 Theriot: Nobody on (65 AB's)-.323/.362/.400 RISP (23 AB's)-.435/.480/.478 Now, that's not all of it-as you can see, Theriot has more at-bats with RISP despite having fewer at-bats overall. Moving Soriano down would increase his chances, but it is not his only reason for a low RBI number. The other interesting thing about Soriano is that his numbers flip every single year in regards to his numbers with nobody on vs runners on: 2002-39 points better with runners on 2003-140 points better with none on 2004-45 points better with runners on 2005-145 points better with none on 2006-80 points better with runners on There is no rhyme or reason to it-but to continue the pattern, he'd have to be much better with nobody on, and so far he's right there with 159 points better with nobody on. I don't think it has any predictive value whatsoever, but it's a very strange coincidence.

I don't know what to say. ??? Please enlighten me with your infinite wisdom Every single plate appearance "skews" statistics by your definition. Why should Murton's last 5 or 6 ABs not be considered but a 5 or 6 AB stretch earlier in the year where he did nothing is. It's not misleading at all to say Murton has been more productive this season when his season long stats (all included, it's not like his most recent at bats are weighted more heavily) are better. Additionally, if you factor in the fact that since Soriano's switch to LF, Murton's barely played, and yet he's STILL HITTING BETTER THAN FLOYD OR JONES. Kinda hard to justify going with Floyd, in particular, except that he's a veteran playing for a manager who likes veterans. Well, if you would factor that in, you should at least mention that Floyd has barely played at all since Soriano moved to LF as well-considering this is how many at-bats each have gotten since Soriano's first game in LF: Murton-32 Floyd-26 So Murton has gotten more at-bats since Soriano switched to LF, which kind of eliminates your point that he's hardly played since that time compared to Floyd. BTW, even without that point-I think Murton is really starting to hit the ball well, and I hope he is in there for at least a majority if not a good majority of at bats in the near future, because he is playing better than Floyd. Except that I did include Jones, as well as Floyd, in my commentary. I made the point that Murton should be playing over Floyd and Jones, though Floyd in particular. Playing Murton is clearly the least of Sweet Lou's priorities. Which means that Lou lied to the fans and the media -- repeatedly. And I don't like being lied to. Lou can't play Murton over Jones-they play different positions. Jones has started a total of 1 game in RF since Soriano took over LF, and that was weeks ago when Murton was having his back problems. The only other times Jones has played RF is when he was switched over there as part of a defensive double switch to get Pie in the game late. So Jones is really getting very little time in RF to take away from Murton. It's been pretty much a Floyd/Murton platoon over there (with one DeRosa game thrown in) and Murton has gotten the majority of the at-bats since Soriano came back.

I don't know what to say. ??? Please enlighten me with your infinite wisdom Every single plate appearance "skews" statistics by your definition. Why should Murton's last 5 or 6 ABs not be considered but a 5 or 6 AB stretch earlier in the year where he did nothing is. It's not misleading at all to say Murton has been more productive this season when his season long stats (all included, it's not like his most recent at bats are weighted more heavily) are better. Additionally, if you factor in the fact that since Soriano's switch to LF, Murton's barely played, and yet he's STILL HITTING BETTER THAN FLOYD OR JONES. Kinda hard to justify going with Floyd, in particular, except that he's a veteran playing for a manager who likes veterans. Well, if you would factor that in, you should at least mention that Floyd has barely played at all since Soriano moved to LF as well-considering this is how many at-bats each have gotten since Soriano's first game in LF: Murton-32 Floyd-26 So Murton has gotten more at-bats since Soriano switched to LF, which kind of eliminates your point that he's hardly played since that time compared to Floyd. BTW, even without that point-I think Murton is really starting to hit the ball well, and I hope he is in there for at least a majority if not a good majority of at bats in the near future, because he is playing better than Floyd.

I was just looking over the ERA numbers-this has been a strange year for pitchers so far. 2 of the top 7 pitchers in the ML in ERA are pitching in this series. Before the season, several guesses at a combination of those 2 probably wouldn't have resulted in a combo of Jason Marquis and John Maine. Here are the top 10: Brad Penny, Jake Peavy, Jason Marquis, Tim Wakefield, John Maine, Tim Hudson, Dan Haren, Gil Meche, Kelvim Escobar, Braden Looper. If you would have told somebody during the offseason that Marquis, Meche, and Looper would be close to each other in the ERA rankings, most people would have believed you. If you would have said top 10, they would have committed you :D Add into that Maine and Wakefield, and this has been a little bit of a topsy turvy year so far.

Exactamundo. However, the one thing i disagree with you on CubColt (the highlighted quote) is that as i mentioned before, at least 6 teams are looking for closers at the moment and no one wants to trade big pieces this early in the season. So its going to be real pricey to go out and get a true closer. True you could send one of your starters for a set up man like a Farnsworth, but you would have to take a leap of faith that they are going to be able to close with regularity and consistency. Just dont see anyone selling a 30 save closer at the moment. Yeah, I don't think they can get a "proven closer", but I don't think they need to either. They have an option or two down in the bullpen to close-they simply need another good reliever who can throw a lot of innings down there, if it be a closer or a setup man.

Except that, dare I say it, moving Soriano down in the lineup might perhaps help the lineup by moving players who get on base more often into the 1 and 2 spots. I'll stop the crazy talk now. At the time he made his post (earlier today), Soriano was 3rd of the regulars in OBP. The other two? They bat 2nd and 3rd every time they play (Theriot/Lee). So far, Soriano's OBP hasn't been a problem at all, and he has been one of the players who gets on base more often.

From all I've heard and read, Fontenot would be a good backup option at 2B for a team with 2 backup infielders where the other backup can play SS. That's his biggest problem-he can't even be considered for a starting job in the major leagues at his age unless he gets a random chance to play regularly (an injury or a Theriot like situation last year). It's a little trouble to put him on the bench, because he really can't play SS on a major league level, and so is really confined to 1 position-which for a backup, you better hit really well if you can only play a position not named C, SS, or CF. If the Cubs were ever to figure out their OF situation and drop an OF and pick up a 2nd backup IF, Fontenot might be a good option to come up and be a pinch hitter/backup 2B to pair with Izturis or Theriot as a backup, but 2 of the 3 of Theriot/Izturis/Cedeno will have to be with the big league club as they are the only SS's.

Wow, this is a tougher dilemma that I originally thought. I was one of the ones laughing when Manuel originally made this move-to take out your best starter and put him anywhere in relief is simply really bad. However, I took a look at the Phillies bullpen, and sunnydoo's arguments do make sense. If you put Eaton in the pen, you have all the starters pitching well, and you'll have a lot of leads in the 7th inning-but the bullpen only has 2-3 decent pitchers in it, and no good pitchers, so they are going to blow a lot of leads. Putting Myers in the bullpen, now you are basically sacrificing 1 game out of 5 when Eaton starts. In the other 4 games though, your chances of winning go up, and possibly significantly up. Is that increased chance of winning worth sacrificing 1 out of 5? Normally, no-but for a team with as bad of a bullpen as the Phillies have, it might just be, because otherwise they are going to lose a lot of close games. Also, Myers is a very good starter, but so far he has been a dominant reliever-that increase in his production doesn't offset the drop in innings, but it does help. There's one big flaw in this argument though-the Phillies as a self-contained organization might get more wins with Myers in the pen. The best move though is to simply trade for a bullpen arm-as much as there is a lack of starting pitching available, there always is a relief pitcher or two that could be had, especially if they give up one of the starters. That would give you a bigger increase in win totals then moving Myers.

This is going to be a very interesting lineup. 3 of the 5 guys who have a 1.000 OPS or more against Glavine (min 10 AB's) are Floyd, Izturis, and Blanco-none of whom who would usually be considered to start tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if any of them start tomorrow, or if Lou goes with the lineup he had against left-handers last week. With Marquis in the lineup, it wouldn't hurt too much to have one of Blanco/Izturis to start. Blanco with his good numbers and three right-handers facing the team the next 3 days, and Izturis with his good numbers and recent good hitting. I don't think the team should have both of them in there though at the same time.

Murton's been playing a little better, and Floyd's swings have been getting a little worse (early in the season, most of Floyd's outs were screaming line drives, and he's been striking out and grounding weakly out a lot lately). This will probably continue through the season-whoever is swinging a little better will get the majority of at-bats for that week or two. Murton will pass Floyd in plate appearances either today or tomorrow, and I expect that statistic to continue to see-saw a little while longer.

Murton might be the Cubs second best offensive OF-that certainly is possible. He definitely is not the second best defensive OF though in right field. Soriano is better than him, Jones in center or right is better than him. I do believe Murton is better than Floyd there, although Floyd has been much better than Murton defensively in right field so far.

Soriano's been a pretty good leadoff hitter. Is he an elite leadoff hitter? No. Remember though that Soriano was put at leadoff to maximize his production because that's where he feels most comfortable. So far, his numbers are more in line with his better years where he has hit leadoff rather than his worse years where he did not. So, I still believe Soriano at leadoff is best for the team, even though his skill set would naturally slide him in the middle of the order.

Lou brought him in because he already have up winning this game. I don't blame him though. This team always finds a way to make huge mistakes which cost them runs. It is absolutely pathetic. He certainly shouldn't have given up winning a game down two runs in a hitter's park. That's absurd. Second, Eyre has pitched in many close games, surely Lou hadn't given up winning all those too? This is only Eyre's 4th appearance in the past 2 1/2 weeks. One of those was the final out of a 7-1 win, and 1 of those was in extra innings when the Cubs were running out of pitchers. Lou hasn't been using him in many close games lately.

The team does have 1 on the season. It's going to be tough going now.

Not really-he wasn't expected to be ready for most of this year, and he has a .318/.358/455 line so far-which is good, but not worthy of promotion especially for someone who is very questionable defensively as well.

Theriot had started 6 in a row before this one-the only other Cubs to do that during that stretch have been Soriano, Lee, and Ramirez. This is probably a good day to give him one off.