mikeyt34

Hamels was scheduled to pitch Saturday for Texas. I wonder if they slide him into a spot for this weekend in St. Louis or wait until Chatwood's next spot. Chatwood needs to go to the bullpen and leave Monty where he is IMO.

Once the throw was over the cut off man, Willy was off. Great instincts.

He’ll probably have surgery after the season, the way it sounds. I would assume if this was a surgery situation he’d be shut down. The Cubs aren’t the Mets. There's no reason to believe this has escalated to a surgery situation. If he needs time to get healthy, bring back up Bote and give Kris some time off so he's a full strength for the stretch run.

Wouldn't mind seeing Chavez in the 9th.

Dude is an unhinged weirdo. Is it an act or is he really like this?

That was Len's take. I'm sure that they don't want to press it with him coming off the DL recently. Adduci / Jones / McCann / Iglesias isn't exactly murderer's row, either. That's exactly what Joe said post-game. He wanted to give him an extra day because of the 4 out save and recently coming off the DL. Joe said he'll be good to go tomorrow if needed.

Considering the nicest and most down to earth guy on the team (Bryant) is pretty much his best friend goes a long way to showing Rizzo is probably not a "super fake dickhole."

What did he do? Nothing in particular. Just his body language in general and the pained look on his face when his bullpen wasn't getting the job done.

Man, Counsell really wears his emotions on his sleeve. I don't know if that's a good look for a manager, even though I think he's a pretty darn good one.

Reyes is still young and the medical advancements are improved from 15 years ago but this is certainly looking like the Cardinals version of Mark Prior.

Yeah, it's kind of sad but we all saw it coming. We've had time to prepare. At least he didn't go to the Cardinals like Dexter. I was more concerned with Jake joining the Nats than the Cardinals, but I'm glad he didn't go to either.

Trevor Rosenthal placed on the 60 Day DL (elbow).

Zobrist (travel issues)? Never seen that one before. Well here's to Ian going 4-5 with a couple of dongs. Edit: According to Jesse Rogers, Zo was stuck in Nashville, he went there on the off day and his flight is being delayed.

That's funny you posted that Jay Bell story. Believe it or not, I was actually at that game sitting in the LF bleachers about 20 rows back. I've lived in AZ since 91' and going to a D-Backs game was pretty cool early on in their inception. They made kind of a big deal about the contest prior to the game and made several more announcements throughout the first 5 innings, so everyone in the stadium was well aware of what was going on and what needed to happen entering the 6th inning. Just the fact that Bell even had a chance to come to plate in the 6th with the bases loaded was amazing in itself. The crowd was going nuts when Bell came to the plate and when he actually hit it out, the stadium went absolutely bonkers. One of my most memorable moments attending sporting events in the Valley of the Sun over the years.

I for one am thrilled the Cardinals stood pat at the deadline. They kept their mediocre team intact when they could have at least gotten some young prospects for guys like Carp, Lynn, Gyroko, Pham, etc. As far as the Viva article, they are quite high on some of their prospects. Their best prospect, Reyes, is coming off TJ surgery and most of the others are untested so I guess we'll see. I will concede they have better pitching prospects than the Cubs by a wide margin, but Theo and Jedd just started stockpiling pitching prospects recently while they spent the first 5 years stockpiling positional players so it's not a shock the Cardinals would have the better young pitching. A few other notes: -I know Kyle has been struggling all year but is there a GM in the league who would trade Kyle for Pham straight up? Pham is having a career moment for a journeyman player, Kyle still has the potential to become a very good hitter. Kyle's defense hasn't been the train wreck many predicted either. It may be Pham right now, but over the long haul what GM wouldn't roll the dice on Kyle over Pham. -They sure love their starting pitching. Personally I'd take our top 4 in the post season over theirs. Lester, Jake, and Hendricks are proven bulldogs in the post season, with Quintana the only question mark. The real test will be in the off-season when Theo and Jed go to work on shoring up the rotation. I have a hunch Lance Lynn will be wearing Cubbie blue next spring. If they can get a good deal for Jake, it wouldn't surprise me to see his return as well, but that's doubtful. -Dejong over Russell? Nah. Addy's going to get better at the plate and his defense is game changing. I like Dejong, but he's not going to be an everyday SS is he? I think they both will be comparable offensively in a couple of years, Dejong has the advantage right now, but let's see the league adjust to him to make any assumptions. Didn't the Cardinals have the can't miss Diaz? -A future OF for the Cubs of Schwarbs, Happ, Heyward, Almora, and Zo matches up just fine against the Cardinals OF, probably have a slight advantage with Almora, Happ, and Schwarbs upside. I not convinced Happ's future is in the OF however.

I feel there is a bit of a silver lining in the recent Cardinal win streak. They are 7-6 since the break, which is decent but nothing special. They are a deeply flawed team outside of their starting pitching. They are slow, not very athletic, terrible defensively, fundamentally unsound, and have a ton of middle of the road veterans and "developing" younger players (i.e. Grichuk, Wong, Diaz), and a overrated manager who makes poor decisions consistently. The recent promotions of Kelly and Badar, along with Dejong playing well at SS seems to have energized them a bit keeping them in the race. My point is them being still within striking distance of the division may lead them to keeping players they should truly seek to unload before the trade deadline, like Lynn, Oh, Rosenthal, Siegrist, Carp, Pham, Wong, Grichuk, Gyorko, and Wacha. Keeping these players, even if they don't have a lot of value seems short sighted in the hopes of catching the Cubs who seem to have found their groove in the second half. I hope the Cardinals stand pat, even go so far as trading some of their minor league prospects to obtain bullpen help. They should be thinking about getting younger and more athletic for the future and not consumed with catching the Cubs this year. Who knows, maybe they will pull a rabbit out of their hat and catch the Cubs or the Brewers for the division title but overall this strategy could back fire when there was a chance to get some more decent prospects for several middling players thus effecting their overall quality in 2018 and beyond. I can appreciate the fact that a franchise doesn't want to throw in the towel only being 3.5 game back on July 27, but if they decide to keep everyone knowing several of these guys don't figure in future plans it could set them back for the next few years.

From the who gives a horse feathers department but whatever happened to Brett Anderson? DFA? Iowa? DL still?

what's wrong with him? the stomach bug? That's what Len said.

Won 1st game of series for the first time in the last 5 series. The Cubs are 4-8 in game one of series thus far this year.

This would be very shortsighted on my Maddon's part. Depends on how Butler performs I suppose. If he does well, great, if he doesn't then go to Monty. Seeing what you've got with Butler in a mid-May game isn't that big a reach from the FO or Maddon IMO.

I think Maddon and the FO like Monty's arm out of the bullpen for right now. Probably not fair to Monty who I assume would like to start, but he's their only truly reliable LHP other than Koji's splits to LH'ers. If Monty moves to the rotation it would leave just Duensing.

Now Black will pull him. Lucky horsefeathering horsefeathers.

Bud Black gets rewarded for making a stupid move. Congrats dude.

What a joke