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Alfonso made no attempt to get out of the way and should not have been awarded first. Fred, do you remember back in the day when Drysdale was going for the consecutive scoreless inning record he had the bases loaded, hit a batter, the ump called it a ball because the batter made no attempt to move, then Drysdale got him out to end the inning and keep the streak alive? By the way, if the batter is in the strike zone when hit, the ump is supposed to call a strike. Yes, I remember it well, but I don't believe there is a umpire in the game today that would make that call now !! It wouldn't have mattered this time anyway-it was off the plate, and it would have been ball 4 even if it didn't hit him-I was wondering why he let it hit him because of that.

Are you hoping for this Fred? Usually you post this type of stat after someone just did that-trying to predict the future now? :D

BTW, looking up at his career stats-Blanco has played at 1st one other career game in 1997 with the Dodgers when he initially came up to the major leagues. His only other positions are 1 game at 3rd in 1997 and 1 game in LF in 1999.

How can you not give credit to Dan Johnson for bringing that run home?? I dont understand why you dont give credit to a guy who did his job. :? you're not serious are you? the A's were down two in the bottom of the ninth . . . pretty self explanatory, isn't it? Yeah it's pretty self explanatory. Not giving credit to a guy who did his job is crazy. If you're going to make a out, make it productive. That is exactly what Dan Johnson did. I would rather have Dan Johnson bringing home that run on a sac fly, rather than not bringing home that run at all. As a fan of productive outs, that runner at 3rd base versus that runner at home down by 2 in the ninth makes absolutely no difference at all-Johnson's job is to get on base there, not trade an out for a run that doesn't matter in that context (another hit is needed to score a run anyway-and that hit would have brought the runner home). If they had been down by only 1, Johnson's out would have been incredibly important. If it had been the 8th inning down by 2, then it's an ok out to make to trade for the run, although not ideal. In the 9th down by 2 though, hitting a sac fly is not a batter's job.

I would agree with that. Hendry's job is to let the other clubs know that certain players are available, but it won't do much good to call clubs and beg them to take players off their hands. Once those teams know those players are available, Hendry would just have to wait and see if anybody likes them enough to want to make an offer.

Of course he redeems himself just one minute later by returning the next punt for a TD.

Georgia's first TD of the season was taken away-their punt returner returned the punt 66 yards, started to celebrate a little bit early, and threw the ball when he was on the 2 yard line-by the time he touched it again, he was standing out of bounds out of the back of the end zone-and on replay it was ruled a touchback for Western Kentucky. Now that's humiliating.

That is true. Thanks for the correction.

Fair enough, but two things. 1.) Do you want a hitter of Aramis' quality trying to move runner over instead of drive them in, honestly? 2.) Aramis has had 110 opportunities (AB-SO-H). So one third of those could have came with less than 2 outs, 73 chances. Then ARam has 13 GIDP, giving him 60 chances. And again, we know he didn't do it every time. 51 total chances for David Wright 36 total chances for Jacque Jones Honestly no, I don't want Aramis doing it. Personally, the hitters who would be the best at doing that this year for this team have all split at-bats (and I was too lazy to look at other team's players like this). I do believe that some players do this better than others-and that stats do not show this in a hugely effective manner, but I do agree that this happens at a small enough rate to not turn a terrible offensive player into a valuable one, for example. It's just a small factor that when combined with other factors that could turn into the tiebreaker between similar players.

Considering the fact the team is nowhere near a playoff spot and they have virtually zero chance of making the playoffs, what could Hendry possibly have to do that would be more important than making moves at a crucial and well known deadline that might help the team be better next year? If Hendry didn't work his schedule to free up time to work deals at the deadline, it's just further proof that he is not cut out for the job. Not that I need any further proof anyway. I'm already convinced he's clueless. He's saying that Hendry might have been working on other trades, but just ones that didn't go through and so weren't heard about. For all we know, the Twins were interested in other players, and only became interested in Nevin at the last minute-it's not like they called the Cubs, and the Cubs office said that Hendry was out playing golf or something. Many deals get started right before the deadline-that doesn't mean GM's don't work before that. It's just funny to me-Hendry makes a smart move, and yet he gets villified for the timing of it? I consider it a no-brainer move. I agree with that-it's not a move that I'm going to praise Hendry a great deal for (it really depends if he got something valuable for Nevin or not, if not, this is a no-impact trade). I guess I'm just surprised that Hendry makes the move, and then people claim he was lazy just because the Twins and Cubs didn't start discussions until the day of the 31st-when it is just as likely that the Twins didn't need anybody until then, or were looking at other players than that Hendry was automatically lazy in his job.

Without going into the question (which is too complicated for me tonight), Pierre is probably a bad example to use for this discussion for the fact that he has batted leadoff all this time, which limits the chances that he will come up with runners on. For example-Ramirez has had 192 AB's in those 4 situations this season, even though he has 80 less AB's than Pierre. Jones has 169 AB's in those situations in 445 AB's. To compare, David Wright has had 196 AB's in those situations out of 493 AB's overall.

I think Dusty mentioned something about he wanted to wait till like the 5th for some of these guys since that's when their season ended or something? I seem to remember hearing that. Iowa is done on the 4th. Will we see Restovich considering he's not on the 40 man? I bet we will see Restovich up. If we plan to use him beyond this year (which I doubt) he'll be fine on the 40 man, and we will want to use him. If we don't, then he can be released off of the 40 man after the season-he can take Nevin's spot for now, though.

Considering the fact the team is nowhere near a playoff spot and they have virtually zero chance of making the playoffs, what could Hendry possibly have to do that would be more important than making moves at a crucial and well known deadline that might help the team be better next year? If Hendry didn't work his schedule to free up time to work deals at the deadline, it's just further proof that he is not cut out for the job. Not that I need any further proof anyway. I'm already convinced he's clueless. He's saying that Hendry might have been working on other trades, but just ones that didn't go through and so weren't heard about. For all we know, the Twins were interested in other players, and only became interested in Nevin at the last minute-it's not like they called the Cubs, and the Cubs office said that Hendry was out playing golf or something. Many deals get started right before the deadline-that doesn't mean GM's don't work before that. It's just funny to me-Hendry makes a smart move, and yet he gets villified for the timing of it?

Yup-the kids can be divided into several categories right now Turned the Corner Murton Hill Pleasant Surprises Theriot Pagan Jury Still Out Guzman Marshall Needs more time in Minors Mateo Marmol Disappointment Cedeno Most of the kids have been as good or better than expected.

It looks like we may get some news quicker then we thought: Here's the source on that: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060901&content_id=1640058&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

I'll definitely agree with that sentiment.

Can you believe a Dusy Baker led team might be the only team in history to not have any complete games the entire year? That seems like a contradiction in terms.

Well, I certainly hope we could live with him then. If we got all that, we'd be one of the best offenses in the major leagues! I mean, look at this lineup Murton Barrett Lee Ramirez Andruw Jones Soriano Jones Izturis I don't think it will take that much to be able to live with Murton.

I think Hendry needs to sign a starting pitcher (Schmidt) and make a trade for an impact bat for the Cubs to be in contention next year. With Hill, Marshall, Mateo, Guzman, and Marmol all showing some major league potential, the Cubs have what a lot of teams want (young pitching). Put a couple of those pitchers together with Cedeno and you might get someone like Tejada if Angelos finally wakes up to the status of his team. I dream about the Cubs putting together a good enough package to get Cabrera, but that probably won't happen. I am assuming that Prior can come back and be a decent #3 starter. Finally, let's not forget that the Cubs are in the NL Central where contending might mean winning 88 games. I think it takes more than an arm and a bat to take us from 25 under to contending. I don't think people realize how bad this roster is top-to-bottom with only about 4-6 bright spots. Of our entire roster, there are only really a few position players who aren't drags on our ability to score, and most have some large caveats next to their names: Lee (returning from injury, and it's possible he'll never be the 2005 Lee again even if healthy, because that's hard to do). Ramirez (won't do squat the first month of any season) Barret- good offensive catcher, no real issues there. Everyone else is easily replaceable/forgetable at the moment, or just not good. On the pitching staff, you have Zambrano and Eyre who are the only real definite solid pitchers we can count on. howry isn't a major problem either. everyone else is questionable at best. I'm sorry, but no team with only 5-6 guys you can expect to be solidly above average is goign ot cotnend by adding a pitcher and a big bat, I don't care how weak the division or league is, because our competition isn't exactly going to be standing pat this offseason either. This roster is fundamentally flawed on a pretty serious level, and the fact that we've (Hendry) created this mess in a two-year stretch of weak-at-best overall free agent crops is devastating. I don't know that there are going to be enough good free agents to build a real contender even if we got everyone we wanted and didn't have to worry about moving the dregs of our own roster in the process. Jim Hendry has dug a deep and daunting hole for this team. How many can a team like the Cardinals count on? By that criteria, 1 or 2 more maybe? I'd like to see the list of who is good in their lineup, rotation, and bullpen. They really don't have all that much more than we do.

Barrett has really struggled since coming back from when Eckstein crashed into him. I wouldn't mind giving him a couple days off-not sure he's 100%. The good thing is, there's not really any pressure on him to have to get hot right away-we can go slowly with him.

Another double for Theriot in the corner. He has had several balls hit the chalk already in his major league career..he must have exceptional bat discipline :D

They said that no official decision has been made on if he will be called up or not.

It was a one pitch groundout to short.

Izturis's contract runs through 2007 with a team option for 2008. I agree with you that if Izturis had not been traded to the Cubs, Neifi would still be on this team and Robinson would still be with the Tigers, not the Cubs.

From watching it, my only guess was that he was trying to bunt for a hit..but I have no idea why he would do that, other then that he might be trying to make something happen at the plate because of the slump.