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I don't understand why you think it'd make more sense to have Miller start. He has no future with this organization. Why waste a start on him when we can give O'Malley a look? Because eventually Wade Miller will be starting for the Cubs, whether we want it or not. And I'm not the biggest O'Malley fan. This might actually open up more starts for somebody else though. We know O'Malley will probably go back down after the game. When Miller gets up, he'll probably be here to stay. So if Miller started at Chicago today, he might have started every 5th day for the rest of the season in Chicago. Because they determined he's not ready, somebody like Guzman (if he's not sent down today, which he might-there's not many options to be sent down today) might get another start in Chicago on Tuesday before they determine that Miller is ready to come up to the big club. So this might actually help our young pitchers that we want to see get one more start with the big club, and it certainly can't hurt if O'Malley just takes one start away that was going to go to Miller anyway.

Credit? The kid was cruising. 78 pitches through 5 innings with a 3 run lead. If he is worried about Mateo getting beaned, then tell him not to hit Clemens in the first place. I agree with this. I had no problem with Dusty taking Mateo out before he got hit-what I had the problem with is if the beaning of Clemens was intentional with Mateo coming up the next inning. Now though-he had 78 pitches. How many pitches are we trying to limit the arms to? I would have been fine with him going another inning. The likelihood is that he would have been around 100 pitches after the 6th (more pitches because the middle of the lineup was coming up in the 6th for the Astros). So it was a situation where I think you have to take a pitcher like Mateo and have him possibly pitch close to 100 pitches (hopefully he gets out of the inning earlier then that)-the bullpen needs the rest desperately without putting too much strain on his arm (don't go over 100 for sure). Does anybody know if we are bringing up one pitcher or two today, and who they are replacing? If it's just one-let's say he replaces one of the unavailable guys for today-it still could be only Ohman, Wuertz, Howry, Aardsma, and possibly Novoa in the bullpen today (Erye, Dempster, and Guz are probably all unavailable). Unless they decide Erye is going on the DL, they are probably going to have to send Guz or Mateo down to make room for O'Malley-there is just nobody else to send down today (you could send Aardsma down, but then you're really playing with fire) Reason for Edit: I was just clarifying my point at the end of the first paragraph-it was unclear.

I couldn't tell if it was on the pitch or when he first tried to run, but there was a ground ball to first-and Eyre couldn't get off the mound. He managed to walk slowly to the dugout under his own power. They were calling it a strained hamstring later in the game.

Well, let's see. In a normal situation, Baker would look at the batter-pitcher numbers and put this lineup together. Batter Against Pettitte Pierre 4/11 (1 2b) .364/.417/.455 Izturis 3/5 (1 2b) .600/.600/.800 Ramirez 6/17 (3 2b, 2 HR) .353/.353/.882 Barrett 5/15 (1 2b, 1 HR) .333/.474/.600 Jones 2/16 (1 2b) .125/.176/.188 (I sincerely hope that Murton is in LF and Pagan is in RF today-if that's so, Pagan has never faced Pettitte) Nevin 6/21 (2 2b, 1 HR) .286/.423/.524 Murton 4/14 .286/.412/.286 Perez 8/29 (4 2b) .276/.276/.414 (Cedeno has 1 single in 6 trips against Petitte for a .167/.167/.167 line, and Theriot is 0/2 against Pettitte) Pitcher How will the long game affect that order? I'm not sure-I'm pretty sure that Barrett and Nevin will both get the start today over Mabry and Blanco. I'm not sure which 2 of the 3 will start of the Jones/Murton/Pagan outfield (my brain says what's above, and I hope to see Pagan and Murton in there), and I'm not completely sure at 2nd either (I really think they are trying to give Cedeno most of the starts-but the 18 innings he played last night coupled with Neifi's better numbers might convince Dusty to play Neifi today. I don't see Theriot starting today, but you can never be completely sure with Dusty).

Dusty plans his LF rotation out in advance most of the time, so it will probably depend on if he's hit Petitte or not.

Pierre's walk wasn't intentional.

Izturis's single in the 14th was our last baserunner.

To answer your question, Guzman started on Saturday.

It would lower the chance of scoring a run this inning. Compared to letting Z hit? Exactly-with 2 good hitters, it should lower the chance-when you get a player who hits less than .200 and is also a prime double play candidate if he puts it in play on the ground, that should change the odds.

Good thing one will be sent down soon so Wade Miller can showcase his talents for whatever team is going to sign him next season. Eyre's injury might factor into that somewhere as well.

I was out of the room and didn't see it. chances are I would have cursed luck if the hit were lucky, not Novoa. It wasn't really either-just Burke having a really solid hit on a good pitcher's pitch.

Actually it shouldn't be a problem if his pitches are very limited. I'm not worried about Guz tonight, I'm just wondering what this means, if anything, in Dusty's world of the pitching rotation. I'm actually going to Wrigley this weekend due to events out of my control and I have a mild interest in figuring out who pitches. They announced earlier tonight that it was Marmol Friday, Zambrano on Saturday-They tried to push Z back a day, but Z was insistent on pitching on regular rest.

not to mention that both benches are under warning, so any beanball results in an ejection...again the stupidity of the arbitrary warning system. I doubt anyone will be thrown out at this point-remember, both benches were warned in Milwaukee last week and the Milwaukee pitcher hit our guy and he didn't get thrown out-the ump still has some discretion, and I'm pretty sure they would realize neither side wants to throw at each other now.

Zambrano is ALWAYS available. If it were 2 days after his start, I would be worried about that actually happening if this keeps going.

I would have brought in Dempster here..you need to save your long man for last. What happens if we get a run, bring Dempster in, then he gives up a run? Then we will really be scrambling for somebody to pitch.

What's that bring his total on the year to? Three? Lol..actually 27, but it feels like 3. Izturis has had a good game, but he really ruined that inning for us.

Me neither. I can't believe Houston didn't make Novoa throw two strikes in a row. I guess they got the memo that you can't walk across home plate. That's what I was shocked by..swing at 2-1 if you want, but swinging at 2-0 with a guy who put the first two pitches in the dirt and cannot give up a walk? We'd still be talking about that days later if it was a Cub. :D

If this goes another inning or two, we'll need a couple out of Novoa..only pitchers behind him are Guzman or Dempster.

His last full season he had 25 SB and 9 CS. I want to clarify my own statement there, because it looks better then it is. That is by far his best year with SB's, but it does show he must have decent to pretty good speed.

His last full season he had 25 SB and 9 CS.

ESPN has him at 3 at bats in the 3 spot this year-those might be pinch hit at bats though.

Murton!!!!

Nice call Dusty on that one. You have to applaud the effort by Everett there-he did everything he could there to get the bat on the ball.

Well, let's see. We got a run in the 1st on a Pierre triple and Izturis single. We added one more in the second on a Cedeno home run to left. Mateo pitched really well-had one bad inning, but threw a great deal of strikes-which was well appreciated 5IP, 2ER Jacque crushed a 3 run homer-over the hill in center-440 feet. Ohman and Weurtz combined to give up the 4 runs in the 6th after Mateo left the game to give our current score of 6-5 Astros.

We've theorized that it is because Mateo had just hit Clemens, and was due up 3rd in the 6th-and so Dusty was worried about a retaliation hit. Theriot went up instead, and Clemens promptly hit him.