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What have the Reds been doing? They were doing great with the bat on their shoulder, and when Wuertz came in they swung at the first 5 and 6 out of 7 pitches, a few which according to Gameday were out of the zone. They are almost letting us out of the inning thankfully.

I think we only have 4 steals-the Soriano one was credited as advancing on a WP.

In the 4 games Murton started, Theriot came in for him only once. The other game that Murton came out of the game, it was so Jones could come in during the later innings. I don't get how Theriot is hurting Murton much whatsoever.

Ryan Theriot is playing 3B today because he is the only player on the entire roster with Aram and DeRosa hurt that can play 3B.

Well, I guess for those that thought the second backup infielder was completely useless, this is the scenario where the team needs him. I definitely didn't want his need proven this early though-especially since the lineup will likely be something like Soriano/Theriot/Lee/Jones/Barrett/Murton/Izturis/Cedeno (5/6 may be switched, 7/8 may be switched, or Theriot/Izturis may possibly be switched).

Well, that's interesting. My guess is that Theriot comes in at 2B and moves into the 2 spot. Jones moves up to 4, Barrett to 5, DeRosa playing 3B to 6th, and Murton to 7th (although those 5/6/7 hitters could really be in any order).

I'm not sure we'll ever know the cause of Prior's injuries for sure. There are simply too many variables. The overuse is a very reasonable explanation for at least part of his injuries. He also has had a couple injuries that he came back very fast from in 03 and 05-if they didn't find everything that was wrong (especially in 05) it is certainly possible that it was just a matter of time after the injury before his arm gave out. There also is the minor injury/changed mechanics argument. Do I think Prior is injured because of the overuse? No, not necessarily directly. Do I believe that the overuse contributed to the extent of his injuries and his inability to heal as well when he was otherwise injured? Yes. It's just hard to know for sure how much all the factors came into the equation.

No, if he doesn't get ejected at all this year I win-that's what I chose.

Samardzija is a ways behind Veal and Gallagher, IMO. He's still very raw. He still has a lot of work to do on his secondary pitches. He's mostly throwing fastballs so far. I would agree, but I can't see him as any more than 2 years behind. Veal and Gallagher might be 2008 ready, and Samardzija is in deep trouble as a prospect if he's not ready by 2010. That's one other reason why I think Veal or Gallagher will be traded-because if they are ready that soon, then they are going to run into a logjam, and there's almost no way the Cubs would allow 3/5 of their 2008 rotation to be Guzman/Veal/Gallagher.

I for one would be surprised if Veal/Samardzija/Gallagher were ever in the major league rotation together for any length of time for a couple of reasons. One, the likelihood is that at least one of them will stop being so highly rated, if it is because of injury or simply ineffectiveness. Even if that isn't the case though, they are coming up a little too close together to all make a rotation of a team like the Cubs. If all 3 of them are being projected well by the end of the year, I think one of them will be traded (likely Veal or Gallagher) simply because the Cubs would not want to guarantee spots in the rotation for so many unproven players in such a short period of time, highly touted or not.

This is Colvin's first game batting since game number 1 right? If so, that's a great very, very early start-5 for 6 with 2 SB and 1 HR. No, he played both games yesterday, going 1/7 with a double and K. Oh-well, oops. 6/13 doesn't sound quite as good as 5/6, but it's still very good...that's a .462/.462/.846 line so far. Again though, it can change in the blink of an eye at this point.

This is Colvin's first game batting since game number 1 right? If so, that's a great very, very early start-5 for 6 with 2 SB and 1 HR.

And if they release him, they'll pay him 4 million to sit at home. Is that supposed to be better?

Well, really none of the candidates for the #2 spot have produced so far this season very well. The four people who have played in the #2 slot so far have produced OBP's of .321, .313, .303, and .182 so far. Even if you throw DeRosa in there, that's just .333. I fully expect them to pick it up, but they've all been about the same. :?: Murton has a .375 in the #2 spot. Upon closer review, I guess you probably meant his overall OBP. I haven't seen his pitches/PA numbers, but he sure seems more patient in the 2-hole. He probably also gets better pitches to hit b/c they're not going to pitch around a guy who scouts have to know is generally patient with Lee & ARam behind him. My impressions were the opposite, but that's mostly seeing how much he struggled on Opening Day swinging at everything and how much better he looked on Saturday when he was in the 6 slot. It's only been 2 games for both of those, so there's not really enough evidence for an indicator either way.

Well, really none of the candidates for the #2 spot have produced so far this season very well. The four people who have played in the #2 slot so far have produced OBP's of .321, .313, .303, and .182 so far. Even if you throw DeRosa in there, that's just .333. I fully expect them to pick it up, but they've all been about the same.

Well, he is their cleanup hitter-I would assume that the team thinks he is good.

2 things: 1) Shouldn't Murton see plenty of pitches to hit in front of Lee and Ramirez anyway when he's in the 2 spot? 2)I'm not sure about making Soriano angry this early in the season, especially when we may have to ask him to switch positions later in the season.

I like this. He sent a message to his team without risking much. If he had continued to hold Encarnacion out, he would have hurt the team, but it doesn't sound like he is going to do that, so it's just sending a message with the only drawback being removing a player for 4-5 innings.

that's what I understand too. Although, I don't know how they'll determine who was a starter and who was on your bench. They didn't really-whoever was your starter on day 1 was your starter every day through the first week and a half. I lost a couple good starts by Hamels, but that's all right. It's only the first week and a half, and if there are no more issues it won't matter much over the whole season.

I'm pretty sure Dave Bush would argue with you there :D

Exactly-high schoolers may fail at a higher rate, but the most talented players also typically come out of of high school. If you draft 10 players, a big market team would rather 2-3 become true impact players and the other 7 be awful then all 10 become mediocre (or 1 standout, 5 mediocre, and 4 failures would probably be a better comparison). I dont think the most talented players come out of high school. I dont really understand your argument. I really dont care if they draft highschool players further down in the draft, because those picks are more of a roll of the dice anyway. You want to draft a higher risk player with your highest pick? THere will be plenty of high ceiling guys availible with the 3rd pick I'd just rather see them use that pick on a guy thats more likely to succede in pro ball than one that more likely to bust. Id like to see the top 10 picks from the last 5 years and see how many of the position players that succeded at star level were highschool players and how many were college players. Let me go a little further back then that so we can allow all players to make their way through the minor leagues. I picked out 1998-2002 as a good timeframe (let it be known, I did not skew the results with those years purposefully-I have absolutely no idea who was drafted in the top 10 in each of those years). 2002 B.J. Upton-HS Donald Greinke-HS Prince Fielder-HS Scott Moore-HS Drew Meyer-college 2001 Joe Mauer-HS Mark Texeira-college Chris Burke-college 2000 Adrian Gonzalez-HS Luis Montanez-HS Rocco Baldelli-HS 1999 Josh Hamilton-HS Eric Munson-college Corey Myers-HS BJ Garbe-HS 1998 Pat Burrell-college Corey Patterson-HS J.D. Drew-HS? Austin Kearns-HS Felipe Lopez-HS Sean Burroughs-HS Carlos Pena-college I have to run, so I'll just have to give you the data for now without any analysis.

Exactly-high schoolers may fail at a higher rate, but the most talented players also typically come out of of high school. If you draft 10 players, a big market team would rather 2-3 become true impact players and the other 7 be awful then all 10 become mediocre (or 1 standout, 5 mediocre, and 4 failures would probably be a better comparison).

You're right-I didn't even see that. This move of pitchers is not a great thing for that first Cardinals series-now the Cubs have Lilly, Marquis, and Miller going in that series with nothing really to be able to do about it. If they skip Miller again on the next Thursday the off day (which I suspect they will with the Cardinals series coming up) that means they could throw Marquis, Z, and Hill when they visit St. Louis though.

It's this stuff that OFFICIALLY pisses me off. Great. Now we get 2 off-days, and they probably rescheduled it during a long game streak with no breaks. It should have been rescheduled for tommorow. End of story. This is stupid excecutive baseball. Actually, it fits better for the rest of both teams as well. If they had rescheduled it for tomorrow, it would have been the first of 14 in a row for the Cubs and the first of 11 in a row for Houston. They rescheduled date is the first game after the All-Star Break. It will be the first of 11 for the Cubs and the first of 7 for Houston. Not to mention all of the logistical problems that would happen if the Astros have to stay an extra day in town now. It works much better both baseball and business wise to play right after the All-Star Break.

Hey, they were over .500 too. Baserunners and a winning record, that didn't happen very often. Yup-the funny thing is that isn't the last time it even happened (the 16 baserunners and 2 or less runs). Here's another one: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=260803216 There was also one where the Cubs had 15 baserunners and only scored 1 run. They were actually quite good at this particular trick :D