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Do you have the whole lineup, or just this? So does this mean Murton or Pie sits. Dang, why does Blanco have to play? That's all I know right now. Murton could be in LF. We shall see... Where'd you hear/see this? Wouldn't make much sense to let Pie play vs. the LHP last night and then give him today off. Sounds like a Dusty move. LOL, Lou must feel Jacque will do better against Looper. Plus, if they want to trade Jones he will have to play... In a year where anyone can take this division I would hate to give away a bunch of guys shopping a guy. I assume you mean games the word I'm bolding, and the only way that the Cubs would be sacrificing games is if you think that Pie is better at playing against RHP than Jacque is-which is not definite at all, and Pie's 2-11 against RHP so far doesn't help in that matter either. Not to mention that Jacque had a better OPS against RHP in the majors than Pie did in the minors last year.

Do you have the whole lineup, or just this? So does this mean Murton or Pie sits. Dang, why does Blanco have to play? That's all I know right now. Murton could be in LF. We shall see... Where'd you hear/see this? Wouldn't make much sense to let Pie play vs. the LHP last night and then give him today off. Sounds like a Dusty move. Pie or Jones are the only two possibilities for CF, and they hit LHP the same way-so it didn't really matter which one played last night. I guess they could have played together today and only Jones last night, but that's not that big of a difference with one of the other OF's playing today, if the LF turns out to be Murton or Floyd.

I disagree that Pie is an automatic out against LHP. Nobody has really seen him enough to determine if that is the case or not. He held his own well last night and hit the ball well twice, the ball just never found a hole. I agree with Brenly, the best thing to do in regard to Pie is to play him everyday against every starting pitcher and let him adjust. One thing Pie has going for him is his speed. He is going to get alot of hits merely based upon his ability to get to 1st base in a hurry. From everything I've seen from so far, he deserves a shot to stick for an extended period of time. His defense alone is a huge improvement over the other OF on the roster. I'm not basing that off of seeing him but his minor league numbers, which indicates that he's not nearly as effective against left-handers. Maybe an automatic out is harsh though, because most of the loss is the complete lack of slugging from the left side. Here are his splits from last year: Against RHP-.293/.349/.500 Against LHP-.256/.322/.327 He only had 8 XBH in 156 AB's against left-handers. Also, in the winter league Pie struggled mightily, and one of the reasons given was that they were trying to bat him against a higher number of LHP and that helped cause his horrible winter. Maybe Pie will be better against LHP as the years progress, but right now he is a bad option in the lineup against them.

I think the Cubs should hold off on that deal for now. If a good deal comes along, don't hesitate to do it, but I'd rather hold off for a couple reasons. 1)I think Jacque's value will be higher a little closer to the deadline. 2) If Pie comes up and plays center field, he is an automatic out against LHP, unless Soriano relents again and plays different positions based on the day (right field against RHP, center against LHP). Pie has actually shown us a lot over the last couple days-more than I expected from a limited sample. In that, he's shown his talent, but his flaws have also been pretty evident. I wouldn't mind if he stayed in the majors, but I don't think he's good enough right now for me to really mind if he's sent down either.

Not that the Pacers have made great deals recently, but the Bulls would either have to a) give up more or b) take on Tinsley or another bad contract along with O'Neal for the Pacers to accept that deal. That said, as a Pacer fan, I'd be very interested in some incarnation of O'Neal to the Bulls for young players/draft picks. Tyrus, Duhon, 10th pick for JO? I would absolutely do that. I think the Pacers would too. The problem with Nocioni as the centerpiece (and he was in the proposed deal) is that a) he basically plays the same position as the Pacers last two draft picks and most promising young players (Danny Granger and Shawn Williams) and b) when trading the face of a franchise which O'Neal is, you have to sell your fans on it and Nocioni isn't a sexy enough player I'm afraid. That said, I like him and would love to have him on the Pacers. I think the pacers would go for lessthan that. Just to get rid of JO as their max player. I really think Bird and Walsh would like to blow that team up and start over. I think they probably would take less than that too, mainly because I consider Tyrus Thomas a lot. I haven't looked at how salaries match up or anything, but I still think the Nocioni-Duhon-pick pot would have to be sweetened in some way. I agree that Duhon-Nocioni-pick is too low, and Tyrus is probably too much. My guess is that the Pacers would be demanding a guard anyway-they want Diogu to be their future post threat, and Granger and Williams are their wing players. They need a dominant center, but they need some great guards first. Looking at the salaries of the Bulls though, I'm not sure how any deal could possibly be done. The Bulls just don't have any players making enough money right now to make a deal realistically work.

Consistantly very very above average. Yes. Consitantly excellent? No. Now I'm not gonna argue Z doesn't have the STUFF. Because he does. The problem is is control and walks. The ONLY year where I think he has had stellar stuff, and stellar results, is in 2004. ERA === 03 - 3.11 04 - 2.75 05 - 3.26 06 - 3.41 This year is going to be very important for Zambrano. Is he going to continue to trend downward? Or shape things back up? So far it's not looking so good. He's going to have to have a couple more shutout games than previous years to end up in the low 3's of ERA. There are 150 starting slots in MLB. Zambrano has been in the top 15 of ERA each of the last 4 years, and top 10 3 times. Top 15 would be the top half of the "aces" in the league, and for him to hit that all 4 times says that he has been consistently excellent. Will he maintain that this year? I don't know. In fact, I just checked-Zambrano is the only pitcher in the majors who pitched the innings required to qualify in ERA and was in the top 15 each of the last 4 years-the only one.

The full batter/pitcher matchups will probably be posted later, but I'll just post a few highlights. Obviously, nobody has that many at-bats against Looper always being in the bullpen. Barrett is 7/11 with 2 2B and 1 BB Ramirez is 2/11 DeRosa is 1/7 Lee is 1/5 with 3 K Jones 3/4 Izturis 2/4 On the other side, the batter/pitcher matchups are going to be messed up all series long with Lilly in the AL for so long, Marquis a Cardinal for the last 3 years, and Miller's appearances being years ago. Here's a couple highlights though for Lilly: Eckstein: 4/22 Spezio-2/13 Encarnacion-4/11 Kennedy-3/8 Pujols-2/6, 2 K

This is Ward's 3rd IBB of the season already.

I would agree with you, but I think Aramis always made those type of plays. I remember saying in 2003 or 2004 that Aramis would make every tough play look easy and botch some of the routine ones. Now, he's much better at the routine and can still make the tough play.

Mostly youngsters and some career journeymen (Yates in this group). Their payroll has dropped drastically the past few years giving them the need to try to catch lightning in the bottle. well clearly no one goes to their games anymore They haven't in many years. Braves fans became spoiled with success after 14 straight years of playoffs and basically quite showing up during the season. They just waited until the postseason. didn't they also not sell out playoff games? Sometimes, they didn't sell out even playoff games. It was pretty easy to get tickets for the Cubs/Braves playoff series a few years back, that was for sure.

Mostly youngsters and some career journeymen (Yates in this group). Their payroll has dropped drastically the past few years giving them the need to try to catch lightning in the bottle. well clearly no one goes to their games anymore No one was going to their games the last few years they were winning division titles either. The fans got really, really spoiled and just stopped coming during the regular season entirely.

I wouldn't mind if he went another inning-he doesn't appear to be tired at all. I would have people ready if he got into a little trouble though and pull him if a couple runner got on.

Cedno has it. Three hits from him and he he still sucks. Three runs off of Hill and he jumps quite a bit. Both of those things could happen before the end of the year. Well, I know Cedeno will be lower by the end of the year-I'm just saying right now. They are both 0.50 or lower right now.

Yup-that's why I hope Soriano is in center and Pie in right this year. From his minor league numbers, it would seem that Pie might be just as bad against left-handers as Jones is-so I'd like options that can replace him on those days when he does come up for good.

It's quite the battle right now to see who can get lower-Hill's ERA or Cedeno's batting average.

That's really just like Theriot was last year. He was mostly great on the basepaths, but he did things that make you wonder what he was thinking as well. That's the second simply mental baserunning blunder of the year by Theriot (the one against the Reds the first week as well).

My grandma isn't busy this afternoon, I'm sure she'd be able to swing by and play short for a few innings too. Also, why is he hitting in FRONT of Pie??? Pie had a 649 OPS against LHP in the minor leagues last year. There at least probably isn't that much difference right now between Cedeno and Pie when batting against LHP. As far as Cedeno at all, they seem to think that when a LHP takes the mound is a good day to rest Izturis. As for Blanco, 20 AB's against a pitcher is simply not enough to rest Barrett when Blanco just started on Tuesday. Is Cedeno the only other option at SS? Apparently yes. They are the only two to get any time there during the regular season, and there are no signs of that changing at the moment.

My grandma isn't busy this afternoon, I'm sure she'd be able to swing by and play short for a few innings too. Also, why is he hitting in FRONT of Pie??? Pie had a 649 OPS against LHP in the minor leagues last year. There at least probably isn't that much difference right now between Cedeno and Pie when batting against LHP. As far as Cedeno at all, they seem to think that when a LHP takes the mound is a good day to rest Izturis. As for Blanco, 20 AB's against a pitcher is simply not enough to rest Barrett when Blanco just started on Tuesday.

I'm really hoping that he can prove me wrong and have a decent night at the plate tonight. I would agree-I don't care which SS steps up right now at all, I just hope 1 of them will and become somewhat decent offensively.

This is interesting. This is the second time the Cubs have faced a left-hander. This time though they put DeRosa in RF instead of Theriot, which they told DeRosa they weren't going to do. It probably is the best defensive alignment though. Also, very interesting that 2 of the 3 starts that Cedeno has at SS are against LHP.

Go to mlb.com and their standings page. You'll be able to look up the standings by date all the way back to the 2002 season.

Saints give offer sheet out to Jason David: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070419/SPORTS03/704190569/1247/SPORTS It's a 4 year deal, not sure on the money yet but it's supposed to be the largest offer sheet signed during this offseason. My bet is the Colts don't match-they will take the 4th round pick and look in to break two new corners in. They do have options though-their starting corners would then be Marlin Jackson and Kelvin Hayden, who were their top 2 picks 2 years ago, and their 3rd corner would be Tim Jennings, who was their 2nd round pick a year ago. So they do have talent waiting in the wings, but they will desperately need depth. They do have 7 picks between the 3rd-5th round with the David 4th round pick, so that should be quite helpful. Edit: I'm hearing now that the numbers are 4 years, 15.4 million dollars. Good luck with that one NO-you better hope some of that is a poison pill, but considering that it's front-loaded that's probably not too much of the case.

That's one thing that I don't think this team will have a problem with. I see 3 guys who have a good chance of being in the game (taking into account starts, position, and ability to keep up this pace). Soriano is not one of them, although that's not as much trepidation about his start as the simple fact that he's an OF, and it's extremely hard to make it at that position.

It depends on the down and distance. On plays where the run can be considered a big threat, it probably is harder to find receivers with the shotgun because it does take away many running plays. My guess is the Bears will only use the shotgun on 2nd and long or 3rd and long, where the run threat is mostly absent anyway. When that happens, it is much easier to find receivers from the shotgun, and the Bears could still run an effective draw play with their 3rd down back out of the shotgun.

BTW, hopefully the batter/pitcher matchups will be wrong today, because the Cubs hitters have been terrible against Redman in the past. Of those with 10+ at-bats Blanco has the most at-bats and been the best hitter against Redman, but I doubt he plays today Lee has had a very good OBP, but absolutely no XBH in 19 AB's Floyd hasn't been terrible, but he hasn't been good either Aramis, Jacque, and Barrett have been terrible Those with less than 10 at-bats (of course, these have almost no value): DeRosa has 2 2B's in 7 AB's Murton 0-4, Izturis 0-2 On the other side, there is almost no data-the most any Braves hitter has had is 3 AB's against Hill, (Jones 0-3, Diaz-2 for 3 with a 2B)-nothing to base anything on there.