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I wonder how long this can continue before Quade's seat starts to get hot. It's one thing to be outclassed, but quite another to just repeatedly shoot yourself in the foot with fundamentally unsound baseball. The injuries have hurt, but this has been a rotten scene the whole way.

Strained something running to first on a groundout. Our guys are dropping faster than those brats in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We won't even be able to have a proper fire sale because all of our moveable pieces will be on the DL.

That's what I thought, but then he took first.

Probably...strained quad.

Oh for God's sake

Cue the Yakety Sax

Brett Wallace looks like he should be wearing overalls on a porch in a rocking chair with a banjo in one hand and a jug of moonshine in the other.

To be fair it was to JR Towles. Who is clearly better than Geo Soto. Too bad the one person who actually said that isn't here to appreciate the humor. Meph didn't appreciate humor when he WAS here He was too busy focusing his superhuman intellect on ways to worship Tim Tebow to be bothered with such trivialities.

To be fair it was to JR Towles. Who is clearly better than Geo Soto. Too bad the one person who actually said that isn't here to appreciate the humor.

At this point I think I'd be in favor of Samardzija getting starts if we have multiple starters on the DL. Coleman, Russell and Davis have been horrendous and things aren't looking up for Lopez.

I ask because I really don't know: Why is Campana nothing special with the bat? He's hit well above .300 in his last two minor league seasons. I've never seen him play before he came up. Is there something that suggests he's a medicore hitter? The guy has no pop whatsoever. Even Sam Fuld hit for a bit of power in the minors. But if someone has truly elite speed, I don't really want him trying to hit the ball in the air that much anyway. I'd love Campana to stick, but as a 25th man. For him to have much value as a regular, he'd have to maintain an OBP of .380+, IMO. And I'm not confident he can do that.

It seems pretty clear that Wood will probably sign on a year to year basis, but the chances of him going anywhere else are about zero. He could have gotten a lot more money from someone else this year if that was what was important.

Begins June 6th. Considering this game is not worth talking about, anyone want to make predictions on who the Cubs will take and how outraged everyone will be when they make that selection? I know you're kidding, but who could they conceivably pick that would cause outrage? Only scenario I can think of is Lindor with the Bubba and the Bradleys still on the table. I keep having visions of the Cubs picking someone like LHP Grayson Garvin out of Vandy with their first rounder. Nice guy, good potential, but he's not considered to be even a second round talent by most people. After Hayden Simpson last year, it's impossible to predict who the Cubs will take. I'll settle for someone MLB Network actually has a nameplate for to hang on the draft board.

Of course. We have two, maybe three players who consistently work the count.

The lineup looks like one of those September 2006 nightmares Dusty loved to assemble. why would you hit campana leadoff? oh right, he's fast. this is really just a horrendous lineup though, when you consider that two of them should be in the minors, hill should be looking for another line of work, and pena is a robust 2-for-36 against LHP this year. So, so sick of Koyie Hill. At least there are injuries to help explain why Montanez and Campana are in the lineup.

About the only piece that would net Montero would be Castro.

Come on, this is nothing new. Every once in a while you have a situation like this (Pete Rose/Ray Fosse, for one) that gets people really talking about it. And they should. It's one of those issues that people don't think about too much until someone really gets hurt, but it's not just bubbling up now because it was Buster Posey. I think it's one of those things that occurs to people when they see a catcher get laid out, but largely dismiss when they get back up. TT makes a great point, in that if you aren't allowed to blow up the other infielders, you shouldn't be able to blow up the catcher. Nor should catchers be allowed to interfere with runners. Neither catcher or runner are equipped for such high contact. And don't for a second dismiss the idea MLB would make that change. We're seeing rules in the NFL we would never have imagined even 10 years ago, largely to protect the investment of owners. Likewise, with franchise type players like Posey and Mauer cropping up at the position, it's not the least bit unthinkable to see them protected rather than just moved off the position. That wouldn't be the best motivation to make the change, but like the NFL, players are bigger, stronger and faster than ever in MLB, and it would be a rule change for the better. The only reason it has been tolerated for this long is because we love the violence of it, but someone is going to get really screwed up one of these days. Baseball isn't suited to high impact.

According to Chicagocubsonline via twitter he bent over after a pitch and he left the game after that. :x He called for the coaches. Oh for the love of... Yeah, that sucks. But I'll take bending over instead of clutching the elbow/shoulder on the very preliminary indication spectrum.

Whether you think it was right or wrong, you can't deny that was a vicious hit. I cringed watching it for the first time, before I realized Posey had been injured. And while Posey certainly didn't do himself any favors with his positioning, he was probably thinking more about swiping a tag back toward the plate than bracing for a huge collision. In reality, Posey had much less time to assess what was going to happen than Cousins did. Objectively I agree with TT that if some fielders are protected by rule all should be, but I think collisions/blocking at the plate have become so ingrained into the game it would be hard to separate it out. I think there is a perception that catchers can take it because they are wearing pads, but they are hardly invincible out there. These guys (catchers and runners) aren't equipped for heavy contact. We get a rush out of seeing collisions at the plate, but they probably shouldn't be a part of the game.

I don't think Cousins was trying to injure Posey, but I definitely think he made up his mind to blow him up as soon as it was apparent there was going to be a play. I just don't that's appropriate. And the way he hit him was excessive, even if the catcher had the plate blocked, which he didn't. it's an awful lot to ask of a runner to analyze the play at the last moment and decide whether or not to run into the catcher, ESPECIALLY given how common it is for catchers to block the plate without the ball. Maybe, but it's not a lot to ask not make drilling the catcher options A and B, and not to leave your feet and hit him in a manner that gets NFL players in trouble. There are collisions at the plate all the time, but not many have gotten the reaction this one has and not just because a great young player was hurt. Posey himself said he gave Cousins a lane and he thinks he had other options. At no point did Posey have the plate blocked. It's one thing to lay a heavy shoulder into the catcher when he is blocking the plate and quite another to aim away from the plate to spear the guy.

I don't think Cousins was trying to injure Posey, but I definitely think he made up his mind to blow him up as soon as it was apparent there was going to be a play. I just don't that's appropriate. And the way he hit him was excessive, even if the catcher had the plate blocked, which he didn't.

I agree with this. Scoring was clearly secondary in his mind to obliterating Posey. That's what I'm talking about, when the runner becomes more concerned with destroying the catcher than getting to the plate. It doesn't happen often, but you see it from time to time. Actually it would be more accurate to say that the guy was trying to score, and thought his best chance of doing so was to jar the ball loose (versus beating the tag). If he is successful in jarring the ball loose, then at that point he ought to have plenty of time to get back and touch the plate. So in a sense you're right that he wasn't focused on getting to the plate as quickly as possible, but he was still focused on scoring. If that makes any sense. I have no problem if someone wants to argue the rules should be changed, but the runner was not acting maliciously, as you make it seem. As MOJ said, he launched himself like a missile. That's not necessary to jar the ball loose. Not only that, the plate was almost completely exposed when Cousins launched himself. As a matter of fact, it looks like he was preparing to drill Posey before he even had the ball. It was completely excessive, and looks worse the more you watch it. He might not have intended to injure Posey, but it seems clear Cousins determined to hit him as hard as he could before he even knew if the plate would be blocked.

I agree with this. Scoring was clearly secondary in his mind to obliterating Posey. That's what I'm talking about, when the runner becomes more concerned with destroying the catcher than getting to the plate. It doesn't happen often, but you see it from time to time.

Alex Avila or Geo? I've got Geo coming off the DL and am mulling dropping one or the other. Or would I be better off keeping both and dropping one of Nick Markakis, Logan Morrison or Hunter Pence?

I actually thought the Posey hit was too much. There's a difference between going after the plate and moving the catcher if he's in the way and just blowing him up and going back to tag the plate. Since there's so much room for interpretation of intent that it'd be hard to really regulate, but there are hits that just don't sit well with me, with last night's being one of them.