soccer10k

Comedy on NSBB. Neifi gets brought up and a huge debate ensues. It's like clockwork. FIXED.

And like Jon said, the game hasn't even started yet. I can only imagine what it will be like if we fall be...I'm not even going to say it because we are going to win today. We couldn't hit Vargas last night so we'll hit Dontrelle well tonight.

As for the lineups. People should be happy because Neifi isn't in there. It's understandable why Jones is in the lineup after last night.

Comedy on NSBB. Neifi gets brought up and a huge argument ensues. It's like clockwork.

I'm not all of a sudden saying he's a great 1B. Remember he's only substituting, he's been good as far as just helping us win games while Lee is gone. I don't want him to become a 1B. :) I'd prefer your second scenerio. I want TWalk at 1B and JHjr at 2B. I want to give Hairston some major palying time at 2B to see if he can recapture any of his 2002-2003 offense. He said he feels great and is ready to contribute. Now's his chance to prove it. I just don't think Mabry is going to put up very good #'s at 1B. I think the combo of Walk and Jerr will give us better offense than the combo of Mabry and Walk. And we need as much "O" as we can get. Walker isn't great at 1B but we will be able to survive with him there.

I agree with the no strikeouts thing. But, and I think somebody might have used the word already, Neifi is a backup. Last year he started but he was supposed to be a backup. So it's like somebody filling in. Jacque and Patterson were starters. I personally tend to hold the starters to higher expectations than I do backups.

That's just stupid to start Rusch. Why not start your best pitcher so far on normal rest? Baffling.

I wouldn't call the Reds "an otherwise great team." I agree with lousy starting pitching, but they don't have a bullpen. Offense is great though.

This will be the 3rd day in a row they've discussed Maddux :D Maddux is on toss up. Also they just showed Z breaking the bat again. That will never get old.

Not to be nitpicky again Fred, but the first stat you have shows the Cubs having played 20 games and the second you have shows we have only played 17 games. The Cubs have played 18 games. Like last time, I may be misinterpreting your stats. Definitely looks like a bug in the program. Oh well..... back to old drawing board. edit: seems like both stats should be 10-3 and 1-4. Now, to find where bug is !!! I have the Cubs at 10-1 when they score 4 or more runs and 1-6 when they don't. I have the Cubs at 10-2 when they draw two or more walks and 2-4 when they don't.

This is starting to remind me of '89 more than any other year because they're getting it done playing a few younger guys and getting production from some no-names. Plus Zimmer really had the horseshoe that summer. Seemed like everything he tried worked. That was a fun team to watch. In '89 Jerome Walton broke camp with the club as a rookie and hit lead-off hitter. Dwight Smith got called up about a month into the season and platooned in left with Lloyd Freakin' McClendon, Maddux was in about his third season, Grace was in his second or third. Third base was shared by Vance Law and Angel Salazar. Sutcliffe was in the rotation but I can't remember who the other three starters were. HAHA. Lloyd McClendon. One of the best headlines I ever saw was a few years ago when I was visiting my grandparents in Minnesota. I picked up the sports section in the summer and one of the headlines read "McClendon Steals First Base." I'm thinking how on earth did somebody steal first base. He was managing Pittsburgh, got angry over a call and ripped the first base bag out from the ground and carried it away. It was awesome.

Nice =D> The best thing about Betancourt's single was that Ozzie intentionally walked the previous batter to get to him. That was the other reason I bought MLB.TV. I was just sitting at my computer and I noticed that the game was still on so I watched the bottom of the eleventh. It's really nice being able to watch any game you want.

I saw that and I couldn't believe they screwed that up. ESPN idiots.

Cincinnati being blacked out for you is weird. I live about 7 hours from Los Angeles and 8 from San Diego but I'm not blacked out on those games. I only get the A's and Giants blacked out.

I was quite pleased with how Z composed himself. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

Excellent. Let's see what he can do.

That's a strategy that some managers/coaches try to employ. You always hear of basketball coaches purposefully saying the right things to referees to get themselves tossed in hopes of firing up their team. They usually figure that the team can't play any worse so why not get tossed. Same thing in baseball. Either to fire up your team or make the umps thing about certain calls. Definately an interesting strategy though.

Very insightful. It's the gist of the original post. There is some merit in the thought that it saves starters pitches, but Dusty has been given decent pens in the past and still abused his starters and relievers to oblivion. Obviously a good pen is better than a bad one, but is it any more important than the difference between a good starting rotation and a bad one? A good lineup and a bad one? No, in fact it's significantly less important. It's great that our pen has been solid so far and looks to continue to be that way, but it's no different(possibly worse) than if we were more skilled in other areas and weaker in the pen. I may be wrong on this, but I would think it would be much more demoralizing for a team to lose a lead late and have their bullpen blow it than to just have the starter pitch horribly. As I said, I may be wrong in assuming this and either way, a loss hurts, but personally I think that if you are going to lose, it's better to just lose early than lose a heartbreaker in the end. You tend to remember those heartbreakers more, at least I do as a fan. I'll never forget a Sunday Night game in 2002 I believe against the Cardinals where we were leading 9-4 going into the ninth and the Cards scored six runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a no doubt Edgar Renteria 3 run homer to win 10-9. Maybe that's just me. I do see your point though. My main reason for doing this was to separate the bullpen debate from the Jacque Jones thread. And I always appreciate insight from the Tiger.

Hey if we have to have two Cubs on the DL, might as well be them. I mean, it could be worse, it could be Prior, Wood, Miller or Lee on there. Oh wait... :( If any two guys were going to be injured, I would care the least of the two did, especially if they hit each other. Then again Jones is playing a little better. Did he really injure his hand high-fiving guys in the dugout after his homer? How many people on this board would seriously be disappointed if Jones and Neifi would have collided on that play and been injured? I wouldn't have felt much for Neifi, but I'm giving Jones more time to turn it around and become a decent contributor.

Pictures anybody?

Very insightful.

I'm not going to lie, I did absolutely nothing to help the Cubs win today. I didn't do anything to help them lose either though. Which would mean I helped them win. But I said I didn't help them win. Wait, I'm confused. Screw this, I'm getting a beer.

I do agree that the Cubs need to work the count against Willis. They proved they can get to the Marlins bullpen and a lack of a left handed reliever isn't going to help them at all.

At Wrigley the Cubs haven't done much against the D-Train. He's 2-0 with a 1.01 ERA in his career. Frankly, I don't care if they beat him or their bullpen. Just win. I love the Cubs Huh. I thought we hit Willis pretty well. We do. He's 2-2 with a 4.64 ERA, .299 BAA against the Cubs overall. But he does have nice stats in Wrigley. Your recollection, however, might be even more influenced by the beating he took from us in the 03 playoffs. I thought we had one or two good games against him in the regular season and that screwed up his ERA. I might be wrong though.

I'm going to criticize Jones when he's not playing well but I'm not going to criticize him any more or less than I would any other Cubs player. I'm going to give him his due when he gets a clutch hit or makes a good play and I will continue to hope for his success as a Cub. I understand why he feels this way and I think Cubs fans should do the same. If you are going to boo Jacque then you had better boo Aramis just as much because he is hitting just as bad, if not worse, than Jacque currently is.