CHC --- 30 (Wood @ MON Armas) SFG --- 28 (Rueter v COL Wright) SDP 0.5 31 (Eaton @ STL Carpenter) FLA 3.0 32 (Valdez @ NYM Glavine) HOU 3.0 30 (Oswalt @ CIN Wilson)
I kinda figured yesterday’s outcome.
I’m not sure if it’s more painful to continually be down early or to continually blow it late. If you blow it late, you’ve got the feeling of dread hanging over the game, but at least you get eight good innings of happy baseball before hand. If you give up multiple runs in the first inning as the Cubs have done, it’s pretty much an unwatchable game from there on.
Your new Chicago Cubs
Neifi Perez: 232/279/295 He should exist only to be a defense replacement (because Ramon doesn’t have the range) and to kill time on the bench with Jose Macias making up wacky rally caps. He’ll actually bat too much and his fielding will be overrated.
Ben Grieve: Not quite the prospect people thought he was. So maybe he’s the young Todd Hollandsworth. 261/366/415, all below his career numbers.
He’s here to take Todd’s spot, who can’t be expected to come back in playing shape by the end of this season. It’s not as strong a bat as I’d hope, the Cubs needed something to prop up the bench a little bit. I think this will also benefit Todd Walker, because it’s felt like he’s been kept on the bench to give Dusty a left handed option late in the game, and Grieve replaces that. If you want options, it’s actually better to start to start Walker and leave yourself a decent righty (Grudz) and a decent lefty (Grieve) for matchups. Don’t know he’ll actually do that.
There was talk about him joining the team maybe today, and if he got there soon enough, I’d expect to see him get a spot start for Alou or Sosa. They’re both looking worn down.
I’d rather they’d given Dubois or Kelton a shot to earn this slot before grabbing someone mediocre from another team. That’s not how Dusty operates, and this is better than adding Kelton and Dubois to the roster and Dusty never using them. At least he’ll get something out of the roster spot.
Rumor has Marlins wanted Grieve, though people are telling the story multiple ways so it’s hard to gauge their interest.
Mike Difelice: ML Numbers: 136/240/227. Bad numbers for a pitcher. Sadly not a pitcher.
Right handed catcher who’s existence is less to play, but allow Dusty to use Michael Barrett in every game. Barrett should be starting every non-Maddux game and getting in late on the Maddux ones. Dusty has been better than most about not holding a catcher back “just in case”, so this is just a safeguard unless someone gets hurt.
I suspect the PTBNL we gave up are meaningless, if they even result in being players.
The Cubs @ Marlins series over the weekend is critically important and hanging by a thread because of the Hurricane possibly hitting land around that time. They’ve talked about swapping this series with the Cubs home series, but that’s too much trouble apparently. They have a common off day to make up one of the games, but that’d give the Cubs an 23 game stretch without an off day to close the season, and they’d like to avoid that.
The idea that’s floating around is to turn Friday into a doubleheader to replace the second game, get out of town before the Hurricane hits land on Saturday, and make up the Sunday game when the Marlins come to Wrigley next week. I wonder if the Marlins would get to bat second for the makeup game?
Whatever they’re doing, I’d presume they need to make a decision by tonight to get everything in order for Friday.