TCR Friday Notes
...the triumphant return.
- Fun with projections: At their current .642 winning percentage, the Cubs would win 104 games. They have played a considerable amount of extra home games though to this point, so if you use their current .784 home winning percentage and their current .467 road winning percentage, that comes out to (roughly) 63 home wins and 37 on the road for a total of 100 wins. If they "tank" the rest of the way and just play .500 ball, they'd still be good for 90 wins on the year. This would also be a good time to note though that the highest home win total since 2002 is 57 wins done by the 2003 A's and Giants and the 2004 Yankees.
- Pitch F/X is now keeping track of time between pitches for each individual pitcher and The Hardball Times did a brief study wondering if fast-working pitchers do indeed help their defense stay sharp. For the Cubs in 2008, Jon Lieber is the quickest at an average of 17.8 seconds between pitches and Bob Howry the slowest at 26.8. And although the PITCH F/X times likely have different starting and end times, it's interesting to note that the MLB rules state that a pitcher is suppose to only have 12 seconds to deliver the ball once he gets it back from the catcher and the batter is in the box. It's also interesting to note that Steve Trachsel is not the slowest pitcher in the league...that honor goes to Indians reliever Rafael Betancourt.
- Eric Patterson's call-up was a bit of a surprise due to to Soriano's injury, not only to Cubs fans, but Patterson himself. Unfortunately he found himself scrambling for a passport so he could fly to Toronto with the team. They flew out yesterday, so I assume all is fine, otherwise you'd have to expect a roster move and an unfortunate demotion for Patterson.
- Zambrano was actually moved up a day in the rotation with the off-day on Monday. Does anyone else think Lou did it keep Z's bat in the lineup with the Cubs going on the road for two inter-league series?
- Supplemental first-round pick Ryan Flaherty will be sticking at shortstop for the time being and signing his contract when he arrives in Arizona. On the other hand, fourth round pick Matt Cerda, a shortstop out of Oceanside High School in California, will be moving to catcher immediately.
- Some fun you may have missed this week on TCR and around the web.
- Cubnut tempting fate
- Dr. Hecht with the most thorough breakdown of Soriano's injury that you'll find on the web.
- Cubnut's excellent piece comparing the Reds bullpen trio of 1990 and the Cubs current pen.
- The horror that is komodo dragons
- Like 90% of the male population, Rick Sutcliffe is smitten with Erin Andrews
- A post-mortem Mark Prior update
- Arizona Phil checks in on the fresh meat from the latest Cubs draft.
- Fun with photo captions
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