abuck1220

nope.

Was that the Cubs' wives charity auction? It was originally scheduled for Saturday, March 11 (the day after the game I went to), but that game was rained out. I never read whether the auction was also postponed. that's the one. no sign of petrick the day i was at fitch.

only got to go one morning, but i did get to see infield, pfp's, and some bp. i was pumped for harvey and sing in bp, but neither did anything special. craig had the most impressive bp session, as he was knocking em off the rf fence w/ regularity. epatt looked good too, driving the ball well to both gaps. fontenot was taking infield at 3b. coats was at ss, which i thought was kinda stranage...i thought he had been more of an of lately. sing took grounders at 1b and flyballs in rf. he was also with the AAA group for much of the morning. epatt was w/ the AA guys, and so was craig (when's that guy gonna get a shot at AAA?). craig was at 1b. also, didn't the cubs release carlos vasquez last season? i thought they dumped him after the steroids thing. anyway, he was there. blasko and connolly were both there participating in drills. neither of them threw, but i wasn't there to see any pitchers do any throwing. no sign of hagerty.

i was there sunday morning too. but i left at around 10:30 b/c the rain wasn't letting up. plus, i had to go sit in 40 degree weather + rain at hohokam for three hours. though the rain at hohokam kept the crowd (and bids!) down for a charity auction where i scored a pretty sweet piece of memorabilia that i think you guys will like. i'll post scans later...

yeah, that was the problem. these guys really can't be that oblivious to walks, can they?

ok. his team had a 100 mil+ payroll and finished in fourth place and with a losing record.

you're actually criticizing his defense on a play in which he did nothing wrong? walker has showed a little pop w/ some deep drives that don't show up in the box, so i thought i'd share what i saw.

Bring in Lee! Walker displaying his fine defense... i hope you're kidding. he made a good play on the grounder, threw to 2nd, and got back to the bag. not an easy play for anybody, let alone a guy who hasn't played much first. oh, and it looked like his foot was on the bag. not to mention the fact that the pitcher should have been over there. walker also hit a warning track flyball...his second one of those in as many games. marshall looked good...got ahead of almost everybody. had a couple knee buckling curves. hill, guzman, and marshall have all looked worlds better than rusch did on saturday.

why is it that everybody's got such a thing for defense these days? do they think it makes them seem 'fundamental'? wow, your lf and 1b defense got better...two pivotal defensive positions. nevermind the 30 homers you just shipped out...those runs will all be more than made up by having a good defensive first baseman. :roll:

i'm going to fitch tomorrow morning, but i doubt i'll be there for any of the games since they start at about the same time as the big league game. unfortunately, it looks like i'll only make it to fitch once this year...i got rained out on sunday, and we've had two trips to tucson (which means an hour and a half drive, an early start, and no fitch).

yeah, i could have posted this in the game thread, but that's no fun... guzman looked good, but not overpowering. he was all over the place in the first w/ his control...it wasn't like he was getting squeezed or anything. after walking the bases loaded, he just laid the first pitch right in there to green, who smoked one to left center. retired the next six guys though on a mixture of groundballs and flyballs. his only k was vs. gonzo, and he obviously didn't agree w/ the call. tough to get a good feeling for his stuff, as he just flew through the 2nd and 3rd with no ab's going on too long. i'm surprised the papers and the cubs' site focused so much on guzman while hill's three hitless innings seemed to be just an after thought. he wasn't at his filthiest, but he was really commanding his fb. three walks seems like a lot, but the first one came on a 3-2 curve that drew checked his swing on, and that call could have gone either way. snyder walked next on a 3-2 fb that just missed the outside corner. so it wasn't like he was all over the place. on the walk to hudson (in his final inning), however, he missed way up in the zone with a bunch of fb's. that was a bad ab for hill. he definitely seemed to be throwing two curves -- a sweeping one (got green swinging on that one, and could have gotten drew w/ it on a check swing) and a 12-6 one (that he got frazier on). he also got a swinging k (davanon) on a chest high fb and one on a well placed 0-2 fb on the outside corner (tracy). no balls were hit out of the infield against him, and, even more encouraging was that only one of the nine outs he recorded was hit in the air (infield foulout). other stuff...walker's 2b was sliced to lf against mulholland...nice piece of hitting. pie's double looked exactly the same (of course, he looked terrible his first ab). neifi's hr was a bomb, but his double was kind of a bloop. cedeno lined out hard to 1b, as his tough luck continues. his single was a beautiful bunt that was supposed to be a sacrifice. oh, and he was out at first...ump missed that one. he did make a very good play up the middle on a chopper. the riot made a good diving play at 2b. stephen drew looked terrible at ss. both of murton's hits were off his glove, as murton continues to chalk up those infield hits. restovich looked good in both bp and in the game. he goes to rf very well. aardsma throws hard.

that's adorable.

ssh...

What are Pierre's numbers? irrelevant. he's a LEGITIMATE leadoff hitter.

You don't feel the slightest twinge of regret that, Lee and Barrett coming back or not, Team USA just lost? To Team Mexico, no less? not me. now i get to see lee, barrett, teix and street when i go to spring training. maybe i'm a little selfish...or a lot selfish. the worst part is how we're going to have to listen to people saying the us didn't bunt enough.

did the color guy just have a baby or something? he really needs to pace himself.

'where did he get the courage to take that shot!?' um...there was like one second left...did you expect him to just take a knee or something? nah, this shot is too scary, i'll just curl up in a ball.

if winthrop wins, i don't even think most people will be surprised. it seemed like this was 'the' upset that everybody was calling. i was so close to picking winthrop, but i chickened out...i had tenn losing next round anyway, though.

hilarious! you do realize that the the only reason that rusch has had any success in the bigs is because people kept giving him chances. even after he was -- gasp! -- 26. and even after he pitched 20 innings of absolutely terrible baseball...actually well more than 20 innings of absolutely terrible baseball...more like, hmm...1000. age 22: 5.50 era age 23: 5.89 age 24: 12.60 age 25: 4.02 age 26: 4.62 (geez, is this rusch guy ever going to amount to anything...he's 26!) age 27: 4.71 age 28: 6.43 age 29 (finally!): 3.48 age 30 (oops, nevermind): 4.52 great post!

dope struck out as a ph last inning.

sorry i'm not giving more frequent updates from my xm, but i'm getting packed to head down to mesa. :D

but that doesn't mean he can't be an effective pitcher. just b/c you can't consider him a prospect doesn't mean that his career is over at 26. How about putting the Hill dillemma in this context...none of us can predicte the future, so all we can do is analyze trends. How many pitchers who were struggling to break into the bigs at 26 that were relatively healthy up to that point wound up having a successful career? None come to mind. I'm not counting on Hill ever contributing anything to this organization. Doesn't mean he won't, but Hendry would be foolish not to trade him if an opportunity came along to trade him for a need. lots of guys have sucked until they reached 26 only to turn it around. the difference between hill and those guys is that they sucked in the bigs while hill took his lumps in the minors.

welly in.

but that doesn't mean he can't be an effective pitcher. just b/c you can't consider him a prospect doesn't mean that his career is over at 26.

cedeno gidp.