javy knows my name

I'm not denying that. Simply saying that they have dealt with injuries. You seem to be completely ignoring that fact. I'm not saying the Cardinals deserve sympathy for their injuries. Again, simply stating that they've had quite a few, which makes your "the Cubs have only been healthy for two days" argument a moot point. The fact that a "star" player has sucked is a completely different point. In fact, that's what I was saying when I said that this payroll should produce more depth. Funny, your argument was that the Cubs were ravaged by injuries. Now you're changing your tune to "well we've had players who have sucked." Interesting that you'd be using that argument, since it's EXACTLY what I said in my previous post. Lohse was out for over a month. He also got skipped a few times earlier in the season due to soreness. In his place, the Cardinals started Brad Thompson. When Lohse went to the DL, the Cubs were 3 games behind the Cardinals. As of now, they're 3.5 games. I don't think we can pin the Cardinals's success on Kyle Lohse performing better than you expected him to. Again, what happens in the 2nd half isn't really the issue, since we're discussing why the teams are where they are at this moment. You made the simplistic argument that it came down to one team being injured. I simply pointed out that that argument has no merit, as the other team has also suffered greatly from injuries You have to at least admit that us losing our best player for almost two months is a pretty big deal. I wonder what your year would look like without Pujols for a couple of months? Hopefully we find out in 2011. Wow that's kind of a White Sox move, wishing harm to a player

Oh that is damn good

um...people are making jokes here. take this stuff elsewhere. i mean, derwood's even being half-way funny. Right, and the joke is that if you complain about Soriano you think he's committed every atrocity in the history of the world. I'm just trying to figure out the ground rules here. Wow, dude, fun is not your thing. There is literally zero amount of mean-spiritedness here and only one person who isn't having fun with it

Wow, this is pretty impressive.

OMFG karma Wolf

How do you manage to misuse your/you're consistently? I have to think you'd get it right occasionally. Also, acquiring more middle infielders is the worst idea you've had in hours.

BTW whoever said the AL's lineup is bad with the exception of Mauer somehow forgot about Carlos Pena. He'll put on a show tonight, book it.

He has a pretty extreme uppercut/flyball swing a la Kahlil Greene IIRC. Also similar to Kahlil, his career OBP is pretty atrocious and has kept his PAs a little limited the last few years.

Adrian Gonzalez

I still really, really like this guy

How can someone not like Phil Mickelson? He's the Jimi Hendrix of golf. Jimi was left handed and learned to play a right handed guitar upside down. Phil is right handed and golfs left handed because he would destroy the field if he actually played right handed. I hate watching lefties play golf. It looks so unnatural to me. Lefty batters don't bother me the same way though...I don't know why. Are obviously much, much more prevalent. In other news, I still can't hit a driver to save my life but I hit my irons like a rockstar. I've been driving a 3 iron slightly teed up off the box in the 225-240 range and without using a wood all round I broke 100 for the first time ever.

lol, sigged

He's been bad defensively, too. In my limited time watching recently, he took two piss-poor routes to balls to his right, letting them get all the way to the wall.

Bonds' isoD is completely disgusting there. Jesus

You know who has awesome stuff, unlike Randy Wells? Heath Bell.

And you just assume the players Brenly would want (which aren't necessarily anyone they could get) would be good? Not hard to best the group of bums he just mentioned. I think Brenly is very baseball smart and he certainly knows what the expectations are here. After the ownership issue is settled, I'd can Lou and give Bob a chance. Well, you clearly just have an old school way of looking at things that favors giving away outs. For years the Cubs have been built to slug the ball at the expense of being a smart and fundamentally sound team. I want a smart team that can move a runner from second to third with no one out, rather then a slugger who swings for the fences and pops up or grounds to short in that situation. Obviously, you need some power in the mix, but this team, like the majority of the teams we've been graced with over the years, doesn't know how to play the game. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Stop talking and defer to Dew now.

Hard to say. I've been a few times, as a clueless tourist and with locals. It's a nice town, but the skyline view from the ballpark glorifies it a bit. It's very much a rust belt town, and the weather can be god awful miserable. But they've done a nice job keeping it from falling apart after the decline of midwestern industry. It helps that it's a college town. yeah, as a city that has always relied very heavily on industry, it is in surprisingly good shape. I believe I heard it's actually going to play host to the next G-20 summit, FWIW

Bradley's teammates have always adored him. That is completely untrue. Yes, a few players out of the hundreds that Milton has played with have publicly said he's a good teammate. A few. The general consensus around MLB is that Milton is a huge a-hole and isn't liked by most of his teammates. Link? Evidence? Nonsense? And Jeff Kent doesn't count. Everybody hates Jeff Kent. ahahahah I love this

Yeah, put that in the random cool [expletive] thread dude

No, he's definitely a terrible manager

Is it really kneejerk when you hated him before he got here, hated him when he got here, and have hated him the entire time he's been here and will probably hate him long after he has left this place? I think not. Clearly you never gave him any chance for sucess and when he was sucessful you failed to respect him for that and just pick and choose your moments to "hate". This is why threads like these are kneejerk reactions to an emotional loss. Regardless, how could you "hate" someone prior to them coming to the team you want to win? I can understand not rooting for their sucess on a different team, but now he is on the team you want to succeed. Shouldn't that be reason enough to stop the hate? I understand if someone else was the preferred option for Gregg's position on the team or if you disagree with the decision to bring him to the team, but still he is on the team that you want to win. Perhaps if you were to stop hating and support him he would do better. haha at the whole post but especially this part

I agree with you, and I'm sure they're a very fun team to watch. I remember being really jealous of the d-backs the last couple years, waiting for upton, young, reynolds and scherzer to mature/come up. Of course, their total inability to play defense (with the exception of young) has hurt their value quite a bit. There is no doubt the Cubs are getting old, but these teams have had the opportunity to stock their farms because of several consecutive year of underachieving and stocking up draft picks. I don't think the Cubs will have an opportunity to do that for quite some time, and I'm not at all interested in watching them tank for 4 years in a row. Also, in order to run out a group of young players such as the Rockies have, we would almost certainly have to have a change in the front office - doesn't seem like cheap, young talent is in Hendry's repertoire.

Sexual

Congrats to Randy Wells on his first major league win. Nice to get a SWEEP!! http://markrich.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/cubs_sweep.gif Ryan Dempster takes the hill for this game http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/columnists/jimbaumbach/blog/Ryan%2520Dempster%2520and%2520Marisa%2520Miller.jpg Against Javier Vasquez, not pictured Soriano continues his absolute domination at Turner Field (career .338/.393/.725 line) and the Cubs keep my streak going, winning 8-3 Thanks to Fred for the spot start last game

Hey, that was nifty, Fred! I had to do it from my iPhone this morning