Do you not watch any other baseball at all? Yes and I bet you that was the first or second time it's happened all year. Meanwhile 6 K's for Dempster. On pace for 27. There have been 60 passed balls and probably 3 times that many wild pitches this year. You think none or one of those has happened on a third strike?
Another Cubs Blog estimates the Cubs lose about 1 win by replacing Ramirez with Freel for about 6 weeks. It's a bit more considering Miles gets a few more PA's, and there's the risk that Ramirez drops off a bit when he comes back or takes longer than 6 weeks. Still, losing even 3 games because of the injury isn't the end of the world, though it definitely removes a lot of the margin for error with other injuries and underperformance.
So you're saying that we wouldn't have to worry about missing Bradley and Ramirez at the same time if he had taken his suspension a week ago, when Ramirez was missing a week with an injury?
Heilman hasn't been that bad. He got completely bombed against Florida, and outside of that his only problem is a higher than wanted walk rate over THIRTEEN innings, where he has a 0.32 WPA.
Does anyone know how long he could be out if he chose surgery? It might be worth looking at if we could have him back by August or so and close to 100% compared to having this thing continue to linger on. Especially considering we have a Micah Hoffpauir on the bench and Jake Fox tearing it up in Iowa. Fox seems to be back to the hitter he has always been. That article made it seem like having surgery would jeopardize Lee's career, otherwise he would've done it over one of the last few offseasons.
His last two seasons have both been worse than Miles. Given that he is older, and only marginally better for their careers, I'm not so sure he's even an upgrade to Miles. Freel had a down 2007 where he had an unlucky BABIP, but aside from that he's been better than Miles' career numbers every year of his career. He's a better hitter with a better approach. His defense seems to be aging though, so maybe he's down to Miles' level at 2B.
At least one team in each league gets an off day each day. Who wants to go to work every single weekend day for months at a time? People who have every weekday off for 4-5 months a year.
Because then, according to MLB, there would have to be an interleague game scheduled EVERY DAY! God forbid. Are you volunteering to coordinate a feasible schedule?
McDaniel has now struck out 6 of the last 7 hitters. Vitters with a throwing error, his 6th. Thomas adds to his double with a triple. His OPS is now about 1.020.