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Double post.

I dont think i have seen this said anywhere. Hendry and Piniella have always stated that they were going to start with 12 and evaluate it in late April depending on injuries, effectiveness, and the team. With the injuries to Soriano, ARam, and DeRosa, i cant see us going with 12 right now. There was a story about the need for 12 pitchers on Saturday, but here's another one from last night: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-070422cubsbits,1,4150910.story?coll=cs-home-headlines

Would not be surprised. If he had to leave the game for a PR in yesterday game how in the world is he going to be play? I wouldn't go so far as to say he HAD to. Lou probably had it in his mind before sending him out there that if he got on, he was coming down for a PR. Lou wanted his bat out there, nothing more. (That is, assuming there wasn't any press about this that I missed.) That's how I felt as well-Lou let Soriano come in, but he almost certainly told him that he was coming out for a PR as soon as he got on base. Soriano saw the ball going into the corner, so he jogged very slowly around. I'm sure you'll see him going at a much higher speed today. Sori wouldn't have been begging to play the last 3-4 days if he was really moving that slowly.

LOL@the DL. Miller on the DL = buying time. I doubt there's anything really wrong with him other than his ineffectiveness. I would've sent him down. At least he would've gotten some work done. I don't think that Miller would have accepted the assignment. This allows them to sort of hedge their bets-keep him, but not let him pitch, and see what happens the next couple weeks. Then they could send him on a rehab assignment, which lengthens the time they can keep him in the organization just in case a few injuries happen while keeping him out of the majors.

Exploratory huh, classic. Its like the kid that goes to the nurse's office at school wanting to go home because they are "sick." I bet Prior didn't win any perfect attendence awards. Exploratory surgery isn't to gauge if there is a problem or not, it's to try to isolate where a problem is. It's done on the shoulder frequently because shoulder injuries are so hard to diagnose-I think the criticism of Prior is unwarranted in this case. I'm kidding. Just seems that is there was that big of a problem it wouldn't be that hard to pinpoint. There are just so many things that can go wrong to cause those symptoms, and some things doctors cannot explain yet. I'm not sure they'll ever know for sure what's wrong-medicine has simply not advanced far enough in that type of area to be able to catch a problem like that in some cases.

No-the team still has 11 pitchers, and they want 12. When Guzman comes up, it will be at the expense of a position player-if that be a Jones trade, Pie to AAA, or the less likely option of Cedeno to AAA.

Exploratory huh, classic. Its like the kid that goes to the nurse's office at school wanting to go home because they are "sick." I bet Prior didn't win any perfect attendence awards. Exploratory surgery isn't to gauge if there is a problem or not, it's to try to isolate where a problem is. It's done on the shoulder frequently because shoulder injuries are so hard to diagnose-I think the criticism of Prior is unwarranted in this case.

The DL option huh? Well, that gives one of the young guys a chance next Tuesday. It's their job to make sure that they pitch well enough to make sure that he can't come back in the rotation without some major injuries.

Holy Crap, Floyd in RF. I'm not that into defense, but that is really bad. That at least would seem to indicate that they want Soriano to stay in left for quite a while.

Nope, no coincidence-it is in fact in before the lock.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070422/SPORTS02/704220632/1050 More speculation from Detroit. Just to get this straight - the Detroit paper knows how to use our players better than our manager does? Ok. Great. The other humorous thing is I think the only time he was used correctly this year (when he was brought in to face Hatteberg with the bases loaded last week relieving Z in the 5th) was the time Lou was most criticized for bringing him in.

Thanks Fred-yeah, I expect that Murton will be able to keep up his overall BABIP, just not his BABIP if you take out the 0/9 from his numbers (pinch-hitting and getting subbed into the game) like VJ was talking about.

Ugh...you just reminded me how interminably long the draft is. Yup-expect to wait at least 4 1/2, maybe 5 or more hours for your first pick. A couple of years ago the Colts had something like pick 28-they traded it when it came time for their pick for like pick 36, then when it came time for their pick again they traded it for pick 44. By the time pick 44 came (like 7 1/2 hours-8 hours into the draft) even though I liked the trades, I was screaming for them to pick somebody-just anybody at all considering I had been watching for that long!

In 2006......... CUBS are 15-26 in one run games.... 8-15 in two run games To give a comparison here-the Cubs last year won 43.8 percent of their games not decided by 2 runs or less (43-55) They won 35.9% of their games that were decided by 1 or 2 runs This year, they are 7-4 in games decided by 3 or more runs (and this counts the extra inning game yesterday, which probably should be lumped in with the 1 and 2 run games) 0-7 in games by 2 or less

I disagree about his hitting the ball hard. He has 7 2B's in 69 AB's. That means that if he has around a normal number of AB's, he will have 56 2B's-which would be a career high (the only time he hit 40 or more of those was 05). The K numbers are consistent with every year but 2005.

Then I'd like some of whatever Murton is smoking that makes him the luckiest player on the planet. .357/.400 without hitting the ball hard. Pass some of that to the rest of the team, Matty. That lack of power is concerning. Not necessarily HR power (although a couple would be nice) but the ability to hit 2B's. Murton had 22 2B's and 3 3B's with 14 HR's last year. He only has one 2B this year, and that was a bloop the other day. He might be hitting the ball hard on the ground to get singles, but he's not driving the ball at all. If he continues to not drive the ball combined with that poor walk rate, he's not going to be a productive corner outfielder. Do I expect that to continue? No, I'm sure he'll figure out a way soon to work through this-but that's why think he needs to work through some things. Again, if .357/.400 is Murton struggling, then I think I'll be able to live with his production if he can get consistent playing time. Without driving the ball, he cannot sustain that .357/.400 line-if you look at his BABIP as a starter, it's extraordinarily high-which means that he's getting quite lucky right now for so many singles to fall in the way they have. Ok, I'll give up the jig. I know Murton hasn't been amazing this year (I do think he's been good when given regular AB's, though). I'm just pointing out how ridiculous all the talk of Murton't tremendous struggle is. You can't really say that someone hitting .357/.400 when they start is lost at the plate. You can if you put more faith in subjective distinctions like luck, looks, and driving the ball. It's great fun. I think the thing is that we really cannot say how Murton is doing because he hasn't played enough yet. However, we have a pretty sizable chunck of data from previous years that suggest how he could do if given more time. Murton is not a big bopper (a run producer). That's his main problem with baseball men like Hendry and Lou. First off, I would agree that there simply aren't enough at-bats to get a clear sample yet. Second, I do not appreciate the thinly veiled sarcasm aimed at some of my posts. I am putting out an objective distinction, not a subjective one. As a starter, Murton has been a singles hitter so far with a poor ISOD and a very high BABIP. If that does not change, then Murton will become more like Ryan Theriot offensively-which is not a level of production that a team can really afford from a corner outfielder spot. I am quite confident that Murton can make adjustments to increase his SLG and ISOD, which will offset the losses from his BABIP going down. I'm was just responding to the posts that said he has been doing well so far while starting and saying that if he continues to repeat his ISOD and ISOP, he will struggle.

Not like it matters. Why has it taken him so long to see this guy? P.S. I hate still caring about Prior, but I just can't make myself stop. From what I heard, he just couldn't get an appointment until now-Andrews is the best, and he has many clients.

Then I'd like some of whatever Murton is smoking that makes him the luckiest player on the planet. .357/.400 without hitting the ball hard. Pass some of that to the rest of the team, Matty. That lack of power is concerning. Not necessarily HR power (although a couple would be nice) but the ability to hit 2B's. Murton had 22 2B's and 3 3B's with 14 HR's last year. He only has one 2B this year, and that was a bloop the other day. He might be hitting the ball hard on the ground to get singles, but he's not driving the ball at all. If he continues to not drive the ball combined with that poor walk rate, he's not going to be a productive corner outfielder. Do I expect that to continue? No, I'm sure he'll figure out a way soon to work through this-but that's why think he needs to work through some things. Again, if .357/.400 is Murton struggling, then I think I'll be able to live with his production if he can get consistent playing time. Without driving the ball, he cannot sustain that .357/.400 line-if you look at his BABIP as a starter, it's extraordinarily high-which means that he's getting quite lucky right now for so many singles to fall in the way they have.

Then I'd like some of whatever Murton is smoking that makes him the luckiest player on the planet. .357/.400 without hitting the ball hard. Pass some of that to the rest of the team, Matty. That lack of power is concerning. Not necessarily HR power (although a couple would be nice) but the ability to hit 2B's. Murton had 22 2B's and 3 3B's with 14 HR's last year. He only has one 2B this year, and that was a bloop the other day. He might be hitting the ball hard on the ground to get singles, but he's not driving the ball at all. If he continues to not drive the ball combined with that poor walk rate, he's not going to be a productive corner outfielder. Do I expect that to continue? No, I'm sure he'll figure out a way soon to work through this-but that's why think he needs to work through some things.

Exactly. One could make the case that he is struggling becuase of sporadic use and PHing. That sporadic use and PHing are a direct cause of Murton's struggles. Put a young player in a position where he has to produce to "save" his job and he's going to get hacking. Considering Murton's history from last year, I'm not so sure that's true. His job was safe until he started hacking too much, and then when he had to fight for playing time he became much more patient. That same history though does give plenty of hope that he will work through this pretty soon, and I'm hoping (without being too upset if he doesn't) that he gets a good amount of the starts soon.

Also I am pretty sure Floyds HR was a pinchhit or late inning sub shot. It was either his second or third at-bat after replacing Soriano on Monday.

The likelihood is that whoever is the 5th starter will get skipped because of the off day on Thursday. You will likely see Zambrano.

yeah i think a lot of us agree that this would be best, unfortunately the Marlins and Yankees don't agree I bet the Yankees might agree, especially with their pitching in shambles right now. yeah and Z would fix that how? Do you really think Z is going to continue sucking? He's been terrible pretty much every April of his career. He's always been a slow starter. I think he's just saying that right now there would be absolutely no way that the Yankees would trade the hottest hitter in the league for a pitcher who has an ERA over 7 and is due for a huge contract at the end of the year. The fans have a love-hate relationship with A-Rod-right now they love him, and they would lynch the Yankees front office if that happened. Now if Z starts dominating, and A-Rod struggles for a month or two, it might become possible.

Guzman can't be called up yet-have to wait until Friday for that. Personally, Pie causes more problems then he solves if he stays up until Jones is traded. His hitting isn't quite ready, and to start him everyday with Jones, Murton, and Floyd combining to play one position is a tricky situation. Pie will likely make it the rest of the week, but when Guzman comes up Cedeno makes more sense for staying up-otherwise, Lou will never be able to pinch-hit for Izturis in a key situation.

Only 3 of Cedeno's starts at SS have come within the last 6 games-the other one came at game 6, the first Sunday of the season. Also, the main reason he didn't play SS the second week was because he got 2 starts at 2nd. My guess is that Cedeno will keep getting 2-3 starts a week at SS. You're quite right about game #6, but Cedeno has still started 4 of the last 6 games. (#13, 15, 17, & 18). He has 5 total starts, and Izturis' total is 13. And you are quite right about that-I guess if you are correcting someone you better have your own facts straight :D