I'm taking the weekend off from TCR to spend some much needed time with the family, although I probably will be around parachat for some of the games. We did have a decent chat crowd last night for the opener which always makes it more fun.

....Neal Cotts had Tommy John Surgery.

....Alfonso Soriano will be back at leadoff and left field today.

...Aramis Ramirez, Reed Johnson and Angel Guzman should be back Monday, goodbye Kevin Hart, Sam Fuld and ? (I assume one of Fox, Hoffpauir or Fontenot). Honestly, that Jeff Baker trade is making no sense. I assumed Ryan Freel was going to be the casualty of Aramis returning, but the Cubs created a bigger log jam with the acquisition. There's no doubt that Fox is hot and can handle major league pitching and while he sure hasn't been smooth in the field, he's made the plays so far. Ramirez isn't going to be able to play every day, so wouldn't you want Fox around on those days that he can't play and to give Bradley and Soriano some breaks (a lot more breaks)? I could see Fontenot getting sent down as he's just stunk up the joint, particularly over the last month, but that means committing to a Blanco/Baker second base platoon and having only three middle infielders which Lou doesn't seem to like.  I think Blanco is safe by virtue of being the only capable back-up shortstop on the team, safe at least until Aaron Miles returns.

I guess the answers will come Monday...Happy 4th!

We have the big holiday weekend coming up and the big four-game series to go with it. The Milwaukee Brewers lead the NL Central by a game over the St. Louis Cardinals and 3.5 up on our Cubs. The Brewers are fourth in the NL in runs scored...the Cubs 15th. On the flip side, they are 10th in Runs Allowed and the Cubs are third. As the saying goes, something has to give...

As you'd expect, the pitching matchups favor the Cubs the entire weekend - Seth McClung versus Dempster tonight,  Suppan vs Zambrano tomorrow, Looper vs. Harden on Saturday and Mike Burns vs. Ted Lilly to close the series on Sunday. 

Soriano will sit again tonight, but will be back at the top of the lineup tomorrow. Reed Johnson and Aramis Ramirez start a rehab assignment in Peoria tomorrow and should be joined by Angel Guzman in rejoining the team on Monday.

Tonight's lineup: Fuld (LF), Theriot, Lee, Bradley, Fox, Fukudome, Soto, Fontenot and Dempster.

Go Cubs! 

The Cubs countered the Cardinals acquisition of Mark DeRosa with one of their own, acquiring 2B/3B Jeff Baker from the Colorado Rockies. It's like countering a handgun with a slingshot. Seemingly running out of players to put on the disabled list, Baker is already on it with a left hand sprain suffered back in April, so he should fit right in with the Cubs. He did start a rehab assignment in mid-June, so I presume he's ready to play again and the Rockies were just out of roster space.

The player the Cubs are sending back is unknown at the moment, most likely a player to be named later.

UPDATE: The Cubs send Hi-A Daytona pitcher, Alberto Albequerque to the Rockies. I can't tell you anything about him other than he was having a nice season for the Cubs and he had shoulder surgery back in April of 2008.

UPDATE #2: The Cubs will DFA Ryan Freel to make room on the roster. They have 10 days to try and trade him for a spare minor league part, but chances are he'll just get released.

The Iowa Cubs haven't scored since practically before Sam Fuld got married and that was over a week ago here in Des Moines. While Fuld's big league honeymoon continues his ex-mates have been one-upping the C-Cubs in offensive futility.

Last night the team dropped its second straight 1-0 tilt, and this one went 14 innings. Post-game fireworks displays scheduled for the next two nights may have to wake up the expected large crowds if the silly between innings sideshows can't keep them alert.

Josh Hamilton's in town but the Okey City Redhawks didn't take batting practice last night [glad I got to the park early for that]. Neither did the home team. Hey, after more than two dozen zeroes were hung on the scoreboard, I can see why neither team felt the need to do some pregame hitting.

Hamilton went 1-7 as the leadoff DH. Tonight he'll play CF. I wonder what the Cubs did with the 50k they got for doing the Reds the courtesy of snatching Hamilton in the '06 Rule V and routing him to Cincy. The guy's been out for a couple months with a torn stomach muscle and still matches up pretty well with our man from the Pacific Rim in HR's & RBI's, though The Fuker does a much better pirouette coming out of the box. 

Freshly demoted Jose Ascanio started last night as the organization's majors/minors/rotation/bullpen cha-cha featuring he and Samardzija [Little Z?] plays on. If he was angry at all he took it out on the Redhawks. In the first three innings Ascanio fanned seven, four of 'em looking. Apparently the plate ump was the only one who could see the ball since the pitcher was in the sun and the batters in the shadows for the first few frames. Plus, Ascanio was repeatedly registering 97 on the scoreboard radar screen, the highest number I can remember seeing posted there. It's usually thought to be 2-3 mph slow.

In the 4th he tired visibly so I finally got a chance to see Darwin Barney and his touted glove go to work. First impressions were mixed. He just did get a fleet runner on his first chance, a routine grounder to short. The next batter bounced one over the mound which Barney scooped up and then threw wide of the bag. The play was scored an infield hit but wasn't particularly impressive for someone whose glove is supposed to be their calling card. Later in the inning he made a nice dig and just late tag on a steal of second before nearly sneaking in behind the runner and picking him off of the base he'd just swiped. Suddenly Barney was getting almost as much action as the catcher.

At the plate he went 1-5 in his Triple A debut. He gets bonus points because the song they play when he bats is "Gimme Some Lovin."

In contrast to Ascanio's dart and flame throwing display were the two perfect innings of work turned in by none other than El Duque. The left leg kick isn't quite as high these days but it's still fun to watch the guy pitch. He tossed everything but the kitchen sink up there, none of it faster than 85. One especially lethargic offering finally reached the hitting area putt-putting along @ 53 mph. It was taken for a strike.

Let me just tell you that last night was a beautiful one here with temps in the 70's and a northwest breeze perfuming the whole ballpark with aromas wafting from the grills on the main concourse. The sausages went very well with the goose eggs.

Finally, remember Mitch Atkins? He took Tuesday's 1-0 loss, going the route. The start before that he took a no-hitter into the 8th. For the year he still carries a 5-8 log with a 6.14 ERA. But over his last five starts he's thrown 34 innings, allowing only 23 hits while walking four and fanning 26 to the tune of a 2.38 ERA. Guess he's back from wherever he was all spring.

Oh yeah, Neal Cotts was disabled with elbow trouble and Guzman's supposed to toss the first two innings tomorrow night...MW

Let me preface this entire article with a big old - who cares? With the Cubs playing the way they are, the mercy All-Star that the Cubs will get is of little importance, but I needed an article idea for the day and it's a fun discussion. And dagnabit, baseball is suppose to be fun.

So assuming the lemmings that are voting don't get Alfonso Soriano in there (currently 4th behind Carlos Beltran who is on the DL), the Cubs All-Star will be a reserve. In 2003, the All-Star process was changed and the players vote for eight reserves and eight pitchers, along with the eight starters voted by the fans. It's a 32-man roster, so the managers (in this case Charlie Manuel) gets to pick seven and the fans vote for the final player out of a pool of 5.

So who will be the Cubs representative(s)? Options below the fold...

Read the rest of this entry>>>

Nothing too exciting last night, Rich Harden worked out of a lot of trouble his last three innings, but did strike out 9 in 7 innings without giving up a home run. Milton Bradley went 2/4 with an RBI, a ricochet short of going 3-4. Soto and Fox continue to hit as well and the Marmol/Gregg combo actually did their job. Then we all remember it's the Pirates.

- The Southern League annouced their All-Star rosters and the Tennessee Smokies placed six:  Position players Jim Adduci, Darwin Barney and Blake Lalli will join teammates Casey Coleman, Jay Jackson and Brian Schlitter. 

- Barney will be headed to Triple A though along with a number of other promotions yesterday. Top picks Andrew Cashner and Josh Viiters will each move up a level, Cashner to Double A Tennessee and Vitters to Hi A Daytona. Cub Carpenter will  join Vitters on the ride to Daytona. 1B John Contreras makes the jump from Boise to Daytona, 2b Nathan Samson goes to Tennessee and 1b Ryan Keedy has been released.

-  I stumbled across this old Q&A with Bill James which touches on a wide variety of topics, some Cubs related.

UPDATE: Bill James and Joe Posnanski more recently talked about the age 33 fall-off. Cubs that are 33 this season: Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano and Ryan Freel. So is Ted Lilly, but the discussion focuses on offense.

- Milton Bradley is going to get a few days off to work on his left-handed swing with Von Joshua. The Cubs will likely go with Sam Fuld in center and Kosuke Fukudome in right field.

- 57% of Cubs fan agree with Phil Rogers that the Cubs should put Carlos Zambrano on waivers and see if anyone will take his contract off the Cubs hands. Probably the same 57% that applauded Mark DeRosa each time he came up in Wrigley.

- Barring any setbacks, Aramis Ramirez will begin a rehab assignment on Thursday, it's unknown which lucky affiliate will benefit from the added gate receipts.  If all goes well, he could be back in the lineup against Atlanta next Monday.

- A poll of players around MLB conducted by Sports Illustrated came up with Lou Piniella as the manager players would least like to play for...Ozzie Guillen finishing second.

- If you're looking for a write-up on Aaron Miles elbow problems from Dr. Hecht...

I'd do an ortho writeup on Miles hyperextended elbow... but honestly, who cares other than Sam Fuld.

Our pal Tim Souers was inspired by Saturday's post and gave me this awesome graphic. And I don't really care to harp on the trade, but let me give you my final thoughts. The Cardinals got a good player and it should help them...a little. DeRosa was a 3.8 WAR (Wins Above Replacement) last year, he's been 1.1 so far this year as his defense at third hasn't been too great (at least according to UZR). The Cardinals are going to get him for a little over a half year and the 2 main guys he's replacing are Joe Thurston and Brian Barden who have combined for 0.8 WAR to this point. You can't just simply add and subtract it though, so my rough back-of-the-envelope guestimating says he's probably gonna be good for anything between 1-3  more wins on the year for the Cardinals, which is indeed significant for an individual player.

Read the rest of this entry>>>

The St. Louis Cardinals have acquired former Cub super-utility Greek God Mark DeRosa for RHP Chris Perez and a player to be named later.

I wonder how many standing ovations he'll get from the Wrigley faithful before they realize they're cheering for the Cubs most bitter rival to beat them.

A few stories have popped up since I wrote the last one, so let me update.

Bruce Miles at the Daily Herald:

Read the rest of this entry>>>

I'll make this brief, but wanted a place to discuss the latest in "As Milton's World Turns". First though, the Cubs won, they hit a 2-run home run and a 3-run home run. It's nice to know those haven't gone extinct. Jake Fox and Geovany Soto did the damage and no truth to the rumor that Soto was promised White Castle if he hit one out today.

Randy Wells got his second win on the year, two solo shots being the only marks against him.  After 98 pitches and 7 innings, the increasingly baffling Lou went to Carlos Marmol and he predictably walked two of the first three hitters, gave up a couple of hits with some assistance from Soriano losing a ball in the sun (which I admittedly didn't see) and was mercifully pulled for Sean Marshall who got out of the jam by inducing the 3-2-3 double play by A.J. Pierzynski with the bases juiced.

Read the rest of this entry>>>