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That should have been a DP-more bad defense. Come on Marquis, find a way to get out of it.

bobble-he recovered to make a throw, but it was late by a step.

It doesn't seem to matter who plays SS for Marquis-they are both good defensively, but they both look horrible in the field when he's on the mound.

So.... you've stopped reading the worthless stats of the day, eh? :wink: By the way Fred, Gameday has Marquis at 61 pitches through 3, not 57. I'm not sure which one is right for sure, but based on his totals through 2 I think the 61 number might be the correct one (although most of the time if I'm looking at the stats, I trust yours more :D). Edit: Looks like you already changed it. Thanks :D

Marquis had enough time because he stabbed to try to catch it in the air after Ramirez dropped it-that froze Duncan for long enough that Marquis had enough time to pick it up and fire to second.

For the record, he didn't bunt-he hit a 2 bouncer to the second baseman :D

Pie and Cedeno have had similar starts to the season. Each of them have 2 XBH and 1 BB with no singles, one of them in 16 AB's and the other one in 21.

Cedeno is now 3-4 against Reyes in his career-good hit there! Come on Marquis, let's get a hit or at least move him over. Ok, you moved him over-have to bring him in here Pie.

Marquis is locating his pitches really well so far-almost too well. Once he gets ahead in the pitch, every pitch is either a close ball, or a pitch that the hitter can do nothing but foul off. Unfortunately, they are doing that and protecting and fouling off a ton of pitches and driving up his pitch count.

I would agree-I want to see him get some more time before he comes up. For all the first day heroics, he has really struggled in his very limited time in the majors. Good job Murton! Nice job going the other way.

Izturis is at 3.67 P/PA... his career average 3.38 Yup-it's typical Izturis. He goes deep into the count a great deal, but he has enough 1 and 2 pitch at-bats to drag down his overall P/PA. The longer he goes into the count, the more likely it is that he will take the next pitch.

It definitely would, but even with Lou's acceptance of putting players where they are not entirely comfortable and may make defensive mistakes (Sori in CF, Murton in RF, Theriot in the OF, etc.) that doesn't seem to apply to Theriot playing SS, which tells me that they must have had some really bad experience with him trying SS in ST.

Actually, if they send down Pie (which is likely to get back to 12 pitchers) this is the absolute best thing for Murton. With Jones moving to CF, Murton is the only one left who can consistently play RF. He'll be starting most everyday until the outfield changes again. Floyd is the one who will really be hurt, as he can't play anything but LF and Sori will block him in that spot as long as he is there.

It doesn't sound like it's permanent for now. It just sounds like they are going to play him in left to ease him back into the lineup and give more time for the hamstring. If Jones is not traded, my guess is that Soriano will be back in center in another week or two.

Cedeno is 2-3 against Reyes-maybe he can figure out a way to get a hit today.

I believe that Murton is a good player, but he really needs to take pitches. Enough with the first pitch swinging crap. more fun with stats: Murton is seeing 3.8 pitches per plate appearance compared to 3.7 last year. It seems bad right now because a few instances stick out, but for the most part he's being about as patient as normal. The issue is that he's not getting hits. Plus the aforementioned bad timing with his 1-pitch ABs. While that may be true, I think it's more of a situational thing. It seems like he's swinging at the first pitch when there's either RISP, or in the 9th and we're down by one and need baserunners...those kind of things. It could be false perception, but that's what I've been noticing. That said I still want him to get playing time because I think he's got a lot of potential. Right, which is why I included the bad timing bit. I agree that it certainly *feels* like he's seeing fewer pitches (much like it *feels* like the cubs bullpen sucks), but he's really just timed his 1-pitch ABs poorly. I think this is where pitches per plate appearance and patience might be somewhat exclusive as well. For example, on Opening Day Murton saw 3.75 pitches per plate appearance. I don't think anyone would call him anywhere near patient that day though, as he struck 3 times, at least twice on terrible pitches. So it's not just that he's swinging early in the count-but he's swinging at many more balls then he used to as well.

He'd have known the answer to that last year if the Cubs' management weren't so incompetent. I don't know about that-when I was there for the 2003 playoff series, I had people tell me that they didn't realize Kerry Wood was good and they wondered if this Prior guy that was going in game 3 was any good.

Part of this I think is how late Floyd signed. At the time Ward signed, he was signed as the LH power bat and the key pinch-hitter for the team. When Floyd came available, the club felt that he would be an asset even though he does take away some of Ward's value to the club.

Lou started Theriot 1 game at SS in ST, and I don't think he played another inning there after that game. He does seem very unwilling to put Theriot at SS, considering that Theriot has spent time at 4 other positions and no time at SS, even in situations where it would have made more sense to put him in there (for example, in one game somebody pinch-hit for Izturis, and instead of Theriot switching to SS they took out another player to put Cedeno in). So until I see any other indications to the contrary, I'm not even considering Theriot at SS as something that management would do, no matter how much of an upgrade he might be.

I think the club will have to hang on to Cedeno a while longer simply out of necessity. It doesn't appear like they feel any of the others can play SS, and they will need a backup SS somewhere on the bench so they can pinch-hit for Izturis. There isn't really any help from the minors that the organization would bring up. If the poor play of both Izturis and Cedeno continues, I can see a trade for a SS happening in June or July. It won't be A-Rod (IMO) or probably any of the other great SS's, but somebody average to above average will become available. At that time, they can demote Cedeno and keep Izturis in the backup role until they let him go after the season. Unfortunately, the team will probably just have to tread water on the SS issue until then, so hopefully one of Izturis or Cedeno will be able to pick up the pace a little bit.

...has given up 3 runs or less to the Mets, Brewers, Pirates, and Cubs now. The league hasn't been able to hit him so far-maybe they will be able to their second time around. Right now he's pitching very well though-he has only given up 3 runs in his last 20 innings.

Gameday has him at 29 through 2.

Nonsensical. DeRosa and Floyd should be switched. They don't want to put Floyd and Jones back to back-too easy to put the teams best left-hander in when it comes time for the two of them later in the game. So go: Theriot DeRosa Lee Floyd ARam Jones Blanco Izturis I'd be fine with that, although so far this season things seem to be switched. DeRosa has been great power, horrible OBP. I wouldn't want to see the lineup they have today as a long-term lineup, but I don't think it's that bad either. Well, I'd prefer if Murton were in there and batting 2nd to give us better OBP at the top (I know he hasn't been great in his 30 ABs, but I think he's more likely to be around the .365 he's been for the first 500 or so ABs of his career than the .300 he's been in the last 30 ABs). But I think DeRosa is better in the 2 spot than Floyd. Heck, Jones would probably be better than Floyd for the 2 spot. Why though? Floyd's OBP against RHP is just fine for the 2 spot. Even last year, in his horrible injured year, he had a 342 against right-handers. Before that, he was regularly above 370 OBP against RHP.

Nonsensical. DeRosa and Floyd should be switched. They don't want to put Floyd and Jones back to back-too easy to put the teams best left-hander in when it comes time for the two of them later in the game. So go: Theriot DeRosa Lee Floyd ARam Jones Blanco Izturis I'd be fine with that, although so far this season things seem to be switched. DeRosa has been great power, horrible OBP. I wouldn't want to see the lineup they have today as a long-term lineup, but I don't think it's that bad either.

Nonsensical. DeRosa and Floyd should be switched. They don't want to put Floyd and Jones back to back-too easy to put the teams best left-hander in when it comes time for the two of them later in the game.