ToupeeOnFire

Ugh. And here comes the immortal Gary Bennet.

Tyrus!

At least it isn't switching to the Yankees game. If it had sentience, it would.

Phew, got out of the inning before having to face the meat of the line-up, Preston Wilson and Gary Bennet. True fact: Preston Wilson is .287/.332/.619 in his career against the Cubs. Gary Bennet is .294/.378/.471 in his career against the Cubs. Both represent the highest OPS for each player against teams in which they have a significant number of at-bats.

When Ronny Cedeno is hitting doubles, you know it's your day. Pour it on boys!

Wow, a home run...by a Cub.

Actually I enjoy Lilly's also. Yeah, the only guy who has been painful to watch is Carwade Milbrano.

Actually that is a myth. The fate of blind squirrels... http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4428/20010425deadsquirrel03fx2.jpg Sorry. Too true. Blind squirrels usually end up as roadkill.

Greg Maddux traded for overpaid, arthritic, injured crap. Wasn't that the thread title when the trade went down. Don't worry. The guy who made that awful trade will be gone by next year.

Lou, you idiot. No way should Izturis be batting here.

::sigh::

Well, if this follows the usual script of 2007, the Cubs will get one more golden scoring opportunity only to inexplicably come up empty.

I knew it. :x

Rich Hill laughs at Looper's credentials. (peers into crystal ball) 2007 Cy Young Award Voting 1. Tedrich Lillyhill 2. Cy Looper 3. ...

He's got a ways to go before he passes Edmonds.

Tedrich Lillyhill for Cy Young!

That was pretty cool. I just fired up 2006 and watched a gimpy-legged Cub team get overtaken by the elimination bar.

You also might want to try Retrosheet. http://www.retrosheet.org/

10 home runs for ARod, plus he's discovered the ways of the clutch. So much for him wearing a Cub uniform next year (as if).

Can anyone think of some palindromic former Cubs? I've got Dave OTTO and...well...just Dave OTTO.

Introducing another arm angle to Theriot at this point in absolutely the wrong thing to do. Theriot will never be a long term answer at SS. He could be at 2nd. He should starting every day at 2nd. Izturis is the best defensive infielder on this team. He is twice the infielder that AGon or Neifi were. He has also had some nice at bats. He wasnt crisp on a play and you all freak out? His arm looks fine to me, and he has made some great plays. He doesnt strike out, and he has shown he can move runners. Izzy's O is more then passable in the 8th slot of a powerful lineup. I disagree with a number of your contentions. For example, I disagree that Izturis is the best defensive infielder on the team. I would give that honor to Ronny Cedeno. Secondly, to describe Izturis twice the infielder that Neifi and AGon were is absurd. If you go back to the last season that Neifi and Cesar played everyday at the same time (2005), Neifi was superior in just about every advanced fielding metric. Granted, fielding stats can be dicey and that was the year Izturis went on the shelf to have his elbow surgically repaired, but I think we can agree that the Izturis of today isn't the same fielder he was in 2004 when he won the gold glove. You can assert that Cesar Izturis is a super-terrific fielding SS, just as much as I can assert he is not, but I think any objective measure when all is said and done will disagree with you. I'm not crazy about DeRosa, but it's not as if he is using up his available allotment of home runs for the year. Last year, he hit 45% of his career home runs in his first full season of at-bats. He's not going to continue to hit a home run every 10 at-bats, but I don't know how you can spin his early power numbers as a bad thing, unless you are talking about his alarmingly high strikeout rate which will eventually settle down just as his power numbers will plateau. He's a better hitter than Izturis besides, and has actually played more career games at short than he has at second. So if Lou really wants to get Theriot in the line-up, moving DeRosa to short is certainly an option. It's far too early to declare that the Cubs have been Blausered (although the parallels between the two are a bit too uncomfortable for my liking, DeRosa doesn't have the injury history that Blauser did when he came to the Cubs). As Lefty has already mentioned, for a 27 year old guy who hit 5 home runs in 6 minor league seasons, there is not a chance that Theriot turns into Chase Utley. If he can become Freel Redux, I'd be tickled pink. Welcome to the board, BTW.

Just going by personal observation, I see nothing that suggests Izturis is a great (or even good) defensive shortstop. Average, maybe. If I were to compare him to Cub SS's of recent vintage (and what a sorry lot that is), I would definitely say that he is not as good as Neifi or AGonz was. Now he's only played 33 games at short for the Cubs and I certainly haven't seen all of them -- the defensive metrics might tell a different story -- but I am just not seeing it. He may have been an ace fielder before getting Tommy John, but for a guy who is supposed to knock in runs with his glove (ha!), he's not even close to being as good as advertised. Which leaves you with what exactly, his bat? Just a horrible trade by Jim Hendry that looks every bit as bad in retrospect as it did at the time he made it.

...and when he has more home runs than the rest of the starting line-up combined.

Goats of the game: Carlos Zambrano (he sucked) Scott Eyre (almost makes Ohman look not-so-bad in comparison) Cesar Izturis (double clutching fool) Matt Murton (allergic to home plate) Ryan Theriot (inevitable rally killing DP)

They're teasing us.