soccer10k

Good start and only 10 pitches.

Excellent. It's about time.

Any word on if/when the game will be starting?

Oakland looks like a football stadium. It used to be a nice stadium, but then Al Davis brought the Raiders back to Oakland and built Mount Davis a.k.a. the Al Davis section in center field.

Office Space will never get old.

Either you're going to play or you're not, it's not hard to figure out.

Murton in the 2 hole makes BigSlick a happy boy. Murton leading off would make BigSlick a VERY happy boy. Use him like the Red Sox are using Kevin Youkilis. OBP machine- leadoff. Unfortunately Murton isn't quite as good as Youkilis. Youkilis: God of Walks

Technically it took DLee's injury for this to even be brought up. If DLee doesn't get hurt, Walker would still be batting second. Pierre batting first would still be an issue, but there wouldn't be any discussion about who should bat second.

Is this game going to be delayed at all?

I'm gonna have to watch the replay of this game on ESPN 2 later.

Day is a righty so we have a chance today.

Are you serious? I sort of stopped paying attention to the Cubs for the past week, aside from SportsCenter highlights and box scores in the newspaper, so I'm asking because I don't know. Did that really happen? What was thrown? And did the guy get his *** kicked by the other fans? http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060516&content_id=1457262&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc It was a woman.

So you expected Jones to be a piss poor defender who routinely gets picked off? Piss poor defender? No. He has a horrible arm, but he's not a 'piss poor defender'.

That's just silly. Going to a Cubs game and booing Cubs players is bad enough. But you are going in have already dediced in advance who you are going to boo, that's worse. And then you pick out two guys who are playing poorly and leave off another. If anybody deserves to be booed, it's the players who makes the same stupid mental mistakes over and over. I have a tough time booing performance. But it's not that hard to boo guys who routinely get picked off base, miss cut-off men and roll the ball in from the outfield. Baseball is a game of failure. You win on the margins. Slumps happen, and have to be tolerated, as annoying as they are. Mental mistakes should not be tolerated, and repeated mental mistakes absolutely cannot be tolerated. It's also players that aren't playing anywhere near the level they should be playing at. But not players who repeatedly make mental errors that cost their teams runs in the process, errors than can theoretically be fixed with the snap of the fingers? Are you serious? I said also, i.e. in addition to. Does that make sense to you or do I need to explain the concept of "also" a little bit better for you? What you nee to explain kid, is how you will boo Aramis and Pierre, but don't find Jones's mental retardation while on the basepaths boo worthy. Struggling at the plate happens and is tougher to snap out of. Not getting picked off of 2nd for the 3rd time in two weeks should be EASILY avoidable, but to you, is not boo worthy. I repeat, are you seroius? Don't try to use the fact that I'm most likely younger than you as an argument. That's just stupid. Aramis has struggled FOR A MONTH AND A HALF. Two or three weeks is one thing, but a month and a half, please. Look at the whole body of work. Jones>ARam so far. Will it stay that way? I sure as hell hope not for ARam's sake. But right now it is.

Good for you. Jones is your guy. There's nothing wrong with it. Jones isn't "my guy." I don't love him but at the same time I don't hate him. Believe me, there are a number of players that have been in a Cubs uniform that I have disliked more than Jones and a number that I have liked more than Jones. He is definately not "my guy." So you have no issue with Jones being mediocre/bad, because that's all you expect of him, and you expect more from Ramirez and Pierre? Thats why they are called expectations. Jones is living up to the expectations the fans should have had based on his past couple years. Pierre and Aramis aren't. How can you expect a guy to hit .300 when he hasn't done that in a few years? You can't. I EXPECT Aramis to hit .300 because he's done it the last couple years. He set his own high expectations with good play. Jones set low expectations with poor play and has met those expectations.

That's just silly. Going to a Cubs game and booing Cubs players is bad enough. But you are going in have already dediced in advance who you are going to boo, that's worse. And then you pick out two guys who are playing poorly and leave off another. If anybody deserves to be booed, it's the players who makes the same stupid mental mistakes over and over. I have a tough time booing performance. But it's not that hard to boo guys who routinely get picked off base, miss cut-off men and roll the ball in from the outfield. Baseball is a game of failure. You win on the margins. Slumps happen, and have to be tolerated, as annoying as they are. Mental mistakes should not be tolerated, and repeated mental mistakes absolutely cannot be tolerated. It's also players that aren't playing anywhere near the level they should be playing at. But not players who repeatedly make mental errors that cost their teams runs in the process, errors than can theoretically be fixed with the snap of the fingers? Are you serious? I said also, i.e. in addition to. Does that make sense to you or do I need to explain the concept of "also" a little bit better for you?

Good for you. Jones is your guy. There's nothing wrong with it. Jones isn't "my guy." I don't love him but at the same time I don't hate him. Believe me, there are a number of players that have been in a Cubs uniform that I have disliked more than Jones and a number that I have liked more than Jones. He is definately not "my guy."

That's just silly. Going to a Cubs game and booing Cubs players is bad enough. But you are going in have already dediced in advance who you are going to boo, that's worse. And then you pick out two guys who are playing poorly and leave off another. If anybody deserves to be booed, it's the players who makes the same stupid mental mistakes over and over. I have a tough time booing performance. But it's not that hard to boo guys who routinely get picked off base, miss cut-off men and roll the ball in from the outfield. Baseball is a game of failure. You win on the margins. Slumps happen, and have to be tolerated, as annoying as they are. Mental mistakes should not be tolerated, and repeated mental mistakes absolutely cannot be tolerated. It's also players that aren't playing anywhere near the level they should be playing at.

My only point is that people should stop overreacting after 3 pretty good, though not ace-like and 3 poor, though not Rusch-like starts. It just looks foolish in retrospect. I agree. I wasn't happy with his first few starts, but he did show signs. I'm also not saying he's turned the corner, but with two solid starts he's on his way. If he strings together a couple more, then he's back.

Yep. His 15 hop throws, and inability to follow the ball into the outfield should be lauded. I never said I have been completely happy with his play, but Jacque surely isn't boo worthy.

If I went to a Cubs game right now I would boo Aramis and deservedly so. I would also boo Pierre, but I would not boo Jacque.

Aramis has been absolutely pathetic, awful, downright horrible this year. Hey, somebody has to say it.

You keep asking this question like no one has answered you. He's got 3 years of really good performance as a Cub under his belt. People know this. People know he started slow last season. People are confident he'll be where he needs to be when all is said and done. This is not a difficult concept. Over time, good performance will earn you the benefit of the doubt for a while. If he's still struggling into June, I'm sure he'll get booed. Not after a single game last year was Aramis's season-to-date BA below .200. He was under .200 this year for half of April. Here are his stats as of May 16 for the last 2 years: 2005: .250/.324/.492/.816 2006: .215/.295/.415/.710 That's a big difference.

What's the difference, they're both cheaters. Please, lets not insult Sammy anymore with a comparison to Bonds. Of course if people started throwing at Sammy, we (his four remaining fans) would be ticked off. Bonds stands right on top of the plate and Sosa (at least at the end of his career) stood 8 feet off the plate.

Pretty simple actually. Aramis has actually done some good in a Cubs uniform, over a long stretch of time. Jones and Pierre have not. Lots of others Cubs have not. I'm annoyed as hell at Aramis's start. But it wasn't stupid for Hendry to trade for him (even though I wrongfully criticized it at the time). It wasn't stupid for Hendry to sign him. The Pierre and Jones moves were bad from the start, and then they make it worse by playing like crap right from the get-go. You have to build up some equity with the fans if you want to get away with crappy play over an extended period. A minor leaguer can build up that equity by having a quality ride through the minor league season, that is, assuming the fans in question actually pay attention and understand what the minor league progression entails. A veteran can build up that equity by playing well for the team and living up to his contract. Aramis did that for most of his 2.5 years here. He isn't now. He's taking a serious hit on that equity and now has a long way to go to build it back up. But he's nowhere near Jones and Pierre territory. They're two transient squatters who haven't paid a dime in rent yet, let alone built up any equity in the house of Cubs. I didn't ask you to compare Aramis from the past couple years to anybody else. I simply asked when do you stop giving him the benefit of the doubt? It's a month and a half into the year and he's hitting .215. This isn't acceptable for a player making $11 mil a year. If he's as great as people make him out to be, he shouldn't be hitting so poorly with DLee out. I know you are going to be affected by the absence of an MVP candidate but he shouldn't be affected this much. Aramis is performing FAR under what he should be doing. People routinely boo Jones. As was posted in another thread, Dempster was booed when he blew the save. Why doesn't Aramis get booed when he gets out late in the game and strands a couple runners on base?