abuck1220

if all hill can do is bounce the curve, he's never gonna make it. in his last AAA start, he couldn't get the curve over, and they ripped his fb. he has to throw his curve for strikes. i would venture to guess that i've probably seen hill pitch more than anybody here, and i can't think of one occasion where a guy hit his curveball hard. not one. and nobody hit it hard last night either. when he did miss with the curve last night, it was waaay up and away or down and in. those are great spots to miss with a curveball. because his curve has more of an 11-5 motion than a 12-6, it seems like he hangs it out over the plate less often. so, long story short, i'm going to have to vehemently disagree w/ you when you say that his curve will get hit hard by righties more than not if he leaves it out over the plate. that just hasn't been the case in the 30+ innings i've seen him throw.

that's what the cubs thought they were doing when they signed remlinger and hawkins. neither of those signings worked out very well. relievers' (especially 7th-8th inning guys) performance just vary too much from year to year for anybody to be a sure thing. i'm not saying the cubs shouldn't ever sign a guy like that again, but there's a decent chance that it will end up backfiring.

man, you people are harsh on hill. mitre has a couple decent starts, and people are deeming him the second greg maddux. hill does well, and people are comparing him to estes... by the way, hill is the second oldest guy in the rotation now, behind only maddux. weird.

yeah, he keeps getting hurt because he's not mentally willing his labrum not to fray. that's definitely it. matter of fact, the coaching staff told him a way to throw that would make him 100% healthy and the most dominating pitcher in mlb, but he said, 'no way, suckers. you guys are stupid, and i'll do things how i want.' that was right after the cubs told patterson how to turn into willie mays, but he ignored them and then went out to not sign autographs for little kids and swing at high fastballs. Very clever. I keep reading that his mechanics are a problem. and you somehow know that it is a problem that someone has the answer to, but that wood refuses to change?

yeah, he keeps getting hurt because he's not mentally willing his labrum not to fray. that's definitely it. matter of fact, the coaching staff told him a way to throw that would make him 100% healthy and the most dominating pitcher in mlb, but he said, 'no way, suckers. you guys are stupid, and i'll do things how i want.' that was right after the cubs told patterson how to turn into willie mays, but he ignored them and then went out to not sign autographs for little kids and swing at high fastballs.

1-5, 3 k's for patterson. good job by piggy in a spot start...4 ip, 2 h, 4 bb, 5 k's. and bartosh's great run came to a rough end...3 ip, 6 h, 5 er. mcclain homered and soto and hoffpauir had two hits each. i-cubs lost.

Also, everyone should vote in their poll. It asks "Hot enough for you?" "@#&%^$!" currently leads with 61.7%. "Yes. Make it stop!" is in second with 18.7% followed by "No. Bring it on!" with 12.1%. And yes, I realize that only adds up to 92.5%. I voted "No. Bring it on!" because I don't live in Iowa and feel Iowans should suffer. :D you take that back!

Well, a fact is a fact. Hes still not proven at the major level. Whether he has had a chance isnt the point. If we are trying to win this year, we shouldnt be audiontioning Hill. Just pitch Mitre. Also, look at the number of homeruns he has given up at every single level hes pitched at. Do you really want that at wrigley field? by your reasoning, how is he ever going to get 'proven' at the major league level? in fact, how did mitre become proven? there will always be a guy w/ more experience than a rookie...how's he ever supposed to get out there if he is continually passed up for whoever has more innings than him? and i don't know why everyone is so awestruck by what mitre has done. look at his numbers...it's not like they're passing up a dominant pitcher in favor of one that sucks. if mitre's better, the difference is minimal. and i think most people would agree that hill has a higher ceiling. w/ regard to alou...hill better throw him hooks all night. don't even try to sneak that cutter in on him, because if he doesn't get it in far enough, it's going onto the street. from watching hill's last AAA start, it was evident that if he can't throw his curve for strikes, the opposition just sits on his fb. since he knew his hook wasn't working, he went to the cutter occasionally, but he wasn't getting it far enough in on righties...and they hit him hard. so, for me, it all starts w/ whether he can get his curve over...or at least make it look like it's going to be a strike so he can get some swings off it. go rich!

don't use a sharpie on a ball. [-X

the iowa game is in oklahoma, not in iowa.

i'll bust this pic out for the first mlb start of my favorite cub prospect. i've been a fan of his since before bandwagons existed on this board. go rich! http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3435/1000573aut4vj.jpg

i think my favorite part was the cardinal fans chanting 'mvp! mvp!' as pujols went down for the tenth time (?) w/o a hit in the series.

quit heaping praise on pujols. if neifi could catch, he would have been out easily.

good relief outing from our old pal bobby brownlie...4 1/3, 2 h, 1 r. i may just have to come around on marmol pretty soon...

so the pads lose two of their top 10 prospects AND add joe randa AND add sidney ponson AND send burroughs to the minors AND have to send eaton to the bullpen? awesome day to be a padre fan.

If you ask me, we're still in playoff contention. I think Hill's got a major-league curveball and had a few good innings up here, but I don't want an experiment-player for 5 starts if we're contending...I'd rather let Mitre get back out there, because he's young, but we've seen what he's capable of already. which is exactly why i'd rather see hill out there. i've seen what mitre's capable of...and i'm not impressed. hill had a rough outing the other night, but before that he'd rattled off quite a few great starts in a row.

patterson 0-2 (no k's) so far for iowa. iowa only has one hit, and leicester is getting hit hard. 6-0.

he's not juan pierre, as much as some people would like him to be. i'd rather have him 'trying to pound the ball' than have him check swinging and slapping at the ball just trying to avoid a strikeout. if he's only trying for homers, fine, maybe that's a problem. but trying to hit hard line drives for doubles is pretty much the point of hitting.

oh, man, why hasn't anyone suggested this yet?? brilliant!! seriously, don't you think that if it was something this simple, they'd have done it by now? and i seriously doubt that wood is enjoying these trips to the DL...i'm sure he's 100 times more frustrated than the fans. of course, no matter how many times a level headed person makes a post like this, there will still be 100 other people who say that wood is a wimp, stubborn, stupid, etc...so why do i bother??

rich hill please.

that's probably true. hopefully if corey continues to show progress, they won't have that problem for much longer. also, i forgot to mention that kelton continues to impress me. i've never been a big fan of his, but the dude has really hit in the games i've seen lately. he rarely looks bad at the plate. tonight he got down two strikes real quick, but he didn't fall apart...smoked a rbi basehit into left center. he also flew out to fairly deep right center earlier in the game...did a real good job of going w/ an outside breaking ball. he looked fine at 1b tonight as well. Good for David! I don't think it's a big surprise that I would be rooting for him! FWIW Vince Coleman and Oneri were at the games today and I would like to think that they will be there tomorrow. With that being said I think I'll try to get to the game. oneri was in des moines on friday. vince will probably tell you that you're the michael jordan of scheduling chats. :D

that's probably true. hopefully if corey continues to show progress, they won't have that problem for much longer. also, i forgot to mention that kelton continues to impress me. i've never been a big fan of his, but the dude has really hit in the games i've seen lately. he rarely looks bad at the plate. tonight he got down two strikes real quick, but he didn't fall apart...smoked a rbi basehit into left center. he also flew out to fairly deep right center earlier in the game...did a real good job of going w/ an outside breaking ball. he looked fine at 1b tonight as well.

yeah, why don't you do something around here for once? :D It's all good, just having fun. I am hoping to hear from Jeff before long. Have you noticed more media since CPatt is there? maybe a little bit. there were certainly more people there over the weekend than usual. should have sent him to WT to have him work w/ joshua and to boost their attendance. have you been in contact w/ the i-cubs the way you have w/ the other teams?

yeah, why don't you do something around here for once? :D

hill just didn't have it tonight. don't know if it was the heat (heat index was 105 at game time) or what. his velocity was down in the 87-88 range (according to iowa's gun, which is slow...he's typically at 90 on that gun) and he couldn't get a feel for his hook. they just sat on his fb because he couldn't get the hook over. i don't think he threw a hook for a called strike until the third, when he actually threw a couple good ones. i think most, if not all, of the hits he gave up were on the fb. he could have gotten out of a bases loaded, no out jam in the second (?), but mcclain botched a grounder that could have been a 5-2-3 dp...he did get the out at first, but a run scored. also, i'm pretty sure he was throwing the cutter tonight. he had quite a few 83-84s that didn't seem to be fastballs. and they were mostly thrown in to righties. he certainly doesn't have it mastered, but he did get some weak fouls with it, and one infield pop up where he got in delgado's kitchen pretty bad. he has no problem throwing inside, that's for sure. i used to think he just had a lot of hbp because he was wild, but his two hbp's tonight were just him throwing inside. patterson looked fantastic in his first two ab's. a beautiful bunt to first in his first ab....it was so cute watching the 1b try to outrun him to the bag. he then stole second very easily and scored on mcclain's deep double. in his second ab, he took three balls (one was just off the corner), took a strike and then parked a 3-1 fb over the rf fence...line shot. his third ab wasn't as good. took a ball before really opening up on a pitch on the outside corner, trying to pull it. he popped out to shallow rf. i left after hill came out, so i didn't see the rest of his ab's. it was pretty damn hot at the game, but i had great seats...second row, right behind home plate. i had better seats than leicester and koronka. :D