Jones Update

Well it looks like Mr. Jones will be a Cub for a little longer. The deal fell apart last night, with the problem being how much the Cubs were going to pay of his salary. Hopefully for him and the Cubs he is traded soon.

Jacque Jones traded (maybe)

According to the Florida Sun-Sentinal the Cubs have traded Jacque Jones to the Marlins. It seems the Cubs will be sending the Marlins some money and receiving a prospect in return. According to ChicagoBaseball365.com the Cubs will also be sending the Marlins a player to be named later. This is addition by subtraction as Hendry has finally realized that he should have never signed Jones. This now means the Cubs can add their 12th pitcher, but I think that they should bring Murton back up and split his time with Floyd out in the OF.

While it is not official yet, I don't expect to see Jones on the field. More to come when more info is released.

Bring out the Brooms!!!

Well the Cubs swept the Sox at Us Cellular this weekend and their pitching kept looking great. Zambrano, Hill and Marshall shut down the White Sox while the Cub's offense was able to score enough runs for them to win. In game 1, Carlos continued his revival on the mound after a month of struggling. It might have helped that the Cubs got a 2-0 lead in the top of the 1st, but after the leads Zambrano has blown this year who knows. It was close until the top of the 9th when the Cubs scored 3 more and went on to win 5-1. Then in the next game the Cubs scored the winning run on a suicide squeeze, which would never have been called with Baker and if it had, the person doing it surely wouldn't have executed it. In game 3 there was a crazy play which while it was happening I was yelling from my parent's couch that it was a deadball and no one could be out due to Uribe being in basepath when Pagan ran into him. What gets me that is a basic rule and on the replay it even looks as if the 3rd base umpire called it right away, but then there was confusion and a long debate amongst the umpires and even the announcers (one an ex-manager) had no clue what was going on.
My concern about the upcoming series is Aramis Ramirez didn't look to healthy on the bases and now that there is no DH, can he perform on the field? I am hoping he can, but it also wouldn't be the first time the Cubs activated a guy a little to early.

Barrett traded

Michael Barrett was traded yesterday to the Padres for Rob Bowen and minor leaguer Kyler Burke. The Cubs have said this trade has nothing to do with what happened with either Zambrano or Hill, but since they received so little I don't agree with that. I think this is an awful trade and I don't see the Cubs improving with Hill and Bowen switching up at catcher. Unless the Cubs are about to go out and acquire another catcher or Jake Fox has suddenly learned to be defensive, I think this is the wrong move.
I was so hoping the Cubs would not give up a homer to Sosa, but it happened last night as Jason Marquis let him hit #600. The Cubs should have just walked him or thrown him junk last night, so they would not be the team to let him get to that milestone number, but I know they have to think about winning game first.
In other moves I missed Matt Murton was sent to the minors and since he has been down there is hitting 3-15 with all three hits extra base hits. He also has walked 4 times, but these are not the numbers the Cubs want to see. Matt needs to get his average back up for him to be recalled back up.

My Thoughts

Well it has been about a week since I last posted and right now I am sitting on the balcony staring at the ocean in Florida. I am taking a week away with my wife and daughter and currently I am borrowing someone's wireless.

Since the last time I posted, Barrett and Zambrano got into a fight, Lou got ejected and then suspended and the Cubs did very well under Alan Trammell. My thoughts on the Zambrano-Barrett fight is that both guys need to use this as a turning point for their season as they both have been under performing on the field. Zambrano as I have stated before needs to be more level headed and stop getting so emotional. I think that when this happens he will become a more effective player. Barrett has had a bad year and needs to focus more and he has even stated that he needs more focus. On a side not Zambrano did very well his last start after the fight.

Lou lost his head the day after the fight and it probably was more planned than he says. He needed the focus off the team and on him and I think it was great. I do think the league was wrong by saying he touched the other umpire and I do have a major problem with the umpires being allowed to push Lou Pinella and have no recourse, but Lou gets 4 games because he touched the umpire and excited the Cub fans.. I don't disagree with the 4 days, but the umpires should get a day or so on the bench too if the touch a player or a coach (unless it is to stop obvious physical harm, then it should be allowed on either end).

It was nice to see Alan Trammell having the Cubs play well and win a few games. I always liked him as a SS for the Tigers growing up and was hoping to see the 1984 Cubs play him, but the pain of that season still hurts me to this day, even more so than the 2003 season. I still think the Cubs would have beaten the Tigers, but we will never know. Also last years Tigers were a major product of Trammell's coaching and even coach Leyland said that.

Why?

Why are Zambrano and Barrett fighting in the dugout? Both of them have had a crappy day and no matter what was said neither should be made at each other, but at themselves. This is the type of things we as fans expected from Baker's team, but this is not his team anymore. Maybe I was right in my last post, the team needs to clean house and dump them all and start over.

Fundamentals

I have said it before and will say it again, when are the Cub's going to learn to play fundamental baseball? I am watching this game and Theriot missed a pop-up in inning one that should have been recorded an error, but was a hit. Then later in same inning, why the heck is Barrett calling for an 0-2 fastball to Andrew Jones, when that is what he got the first 2 pitches? Result an rbi hit. Then later DeRosa should be covering the middle of he IF with Harris on 1st and Renteria batting, he is not what happens, he misses an easy ground ball if here were in the place he was suppose to be in. Then in this inning DeRosa is about to catch a pop-up and Matt Murton calls him off and drops it, resulting in another run. These things are what have been killing the Cubs for years and are not changing anytime soon. I was just teasing with my dog-walker Mike, that the Cubs should cut everyone in the organization, including the vendors and start from scratch. All I can say it couldn't be any worse than it has been for the last 99 years.

Added:
Well as I continue to watch this debacle of a game the Cubs have made 2 more fundamental mistakes costing them 2 runs. Jacque Jones committed one, by 2-hopping the ball to the cut-off man and Barrett on the pb, recovered and threw the ball into left field which allowed Thorman to score.