The Chicago Cubs have made another trade as they have acquired Steve Trachsel from the Baltimore Orioles for Rocky Cherry and Scott Moore.  Lol, I know what most of you are thinking right now.  Am I really reading this right? LOL, well I’m sorry to say it but yes you are.

Jim Hendry wants more starting pitching to help down the stretch as the Cubs have 30 games left in pretty much 30 days.  He doesn’t want the pitching staff to come up shorthanded and throught this deal was good.  Hendry also mentioned that he sees Trachsel starting, not coming out of the bullpen, but he will leave that decision up to Lou Piniella and Larry Rothschild.

What do you feel about this trade Cubs Fans?

-Cliff

Earlier in the year, I wrote a post that went in-depth to every position on the Cubs. Now that the roster is set, and September is approaching, I’ll do it again:

C: Well, it took them 6 tries but the Cubs have finally found a starting catcher. Despite Jason Kendall’s lack of ability to throw out runners, his bat has made up for it. Henry Blanco is back and backing up.

1B: No change here, Derrek Lee starts everyday. Hopefully the power becomes consistent, he’s been hitting some more HRs lately. Ward is a solid backup.

2B: Mostly DeRosa has takes over with Mike Fontenot struggling. When Ramirez gets a day off, DeRosa moves to third and Fontenot starts.

3B: Aramis Ramirez has really been in a slump with the power. He admitted he’s not 100% but the Cubs need his bat in the lineup everyday. DeRosa plays when he gets the day off.

SS: This position was up in the air last time I went around the horn but Ryan Theriot as I suspected has solidified the spot. Cesar Izturis is a Pirate and Theriot has been the only guy to play that position since that trade. I suppose the versatile DeRosa could play here too.

LF: Alfonso Soriano is back from the DL and once again the left fielder. The Cubs have a bunch of options if the Fonz needs a day off

CF: Jacque Jones’ resurgence has given him the everyday spot in CF. Felix Pie will play every now and then.

RF: It’s pretty simple: Cliff Floyd starts against righting, Craig Monroe against lefties. Daryle Ward has been getting some starts as well.

The Rotation: Zambrano is still the ace despite his recent August struggles. Ted Lilly has been consistent enough to be #2. Rich Hill’s been better lately. I give him #3. It’s a toss up between Marquis and Marshall for the #5. Lately, the pitching rotation has worried me a bit.

The Bullpen: Carlos Marmol, Bob Howry, Kerry Wood, and Ryan Dempster have been the best relievers. Scott Eyre is the only lefty and has struggled lately. Michael Wuertz has control problems.

The Bench: On a normal day, the bench consists of pinch hitters in this order:

Against RHP: Ward, Fontenot, Pie
Against LHP: Monroe, Murton, Blanco

Pie is the designated pinch runner for Cliff Floyd usually late in a game.

So there are the Cubs that will be headed toward October looking for an NL Central crown. Anything remotely above .500 should do it.

-Mike

The Cubs sent outfielder Buck Coats to the Reds for a player to be named, and also announced the Tigers have claimed lefty Clay Rapada off waivers, which completes an earlier trade.The transaction involving Rapada satisfies the Aug. 23 trade in which Chicago obtained outfielder Craig Monroe and cash considerations in exchange for a player to be named.

Coats, 25, was originally drafted by the Cubs in the 18th round of the 2000 First-Year Player Draft. He hit .303 this year with Triple-A Iowa, with 21 doubles, 11 home runs and 59 RBIs.

Rapada, 26, was 7-2 with 17 saves and a 3.58 ERA in 55 relief appearances for Iowa.

It was Back 2 Back home runs by Matt Murton and Alfonso Soriano in the 6th inning that gave the Cubs the lead and eventually the insurance run that they needed as they beat the Milwaukee Brewers Thursday night at Wrigley Field.  With the win, the Cubs are now ahead of the Brewers by 2.5 games and the Cardinals by 3 full games.

It was a scary 9th inning however has Ryan Dempster had the bases loaded and walked in one run already as Kevin Mench came to the plate with two outs.  Mench hit a hard groundball to shortstop that Ryan Theriot was able to handle and throw to 2nd base where Mark DeRosa was waiting.  Talk about almost a heat attack lol!

Carlos Marmol, who entered the game in the sixth after Chicago starter Ted Lilly worked five innings, got the victory with two innings of relief, striking out five.  Marmol is the Cubs best reliver at this point, I just hope his arm is ok after throwing all the innings that he has.  I don’t like him throwing two innings a game, but hopefully the coaching staff and trainers know what they are doing with the young kid.

The Cubs will now start a three game series with the Houston Astros on Friday afternoon in Chicago.  The first game will be Sean Marshall for the Cubs against Wandy Rodriguez for the Astros.  Lets go Cubs!

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Tonight it was a big 7th inning by the Milwaukee Brewers that helped them beat the Cubs 1-6 at Wrigley Field.  With the win, the Brewers are now back in second place in the division and only 1.5 games behind the Cubs.

The Cubs had their chances tonight but could never get a hit with a few runners on, or lay down a sac bunt to move runners along.  They have got to do these small things if they want to win games down the stretch and into the playoffs.

Carlos Zambrano struggled once again as he tied for his 15th win of the season.  He is winless since signing a five-year, $91.5 million contract on Aug. 17 and hasn’t won since July 29. In 6 1-3 innings Wednesday night, he gave up nine hits and six runs which five of them were earned.

Tomorrow night will be the rubber match of the series and the last time the Cubs and Brewers will play against each other unless they meet up in a 1-game playoff at the end of the season.  The Cubs will be sending Ted Lilly to the mound against the Brew Crew.  Hopefully Lilly can throw 7 strong innings and lead the Cubs to the Win!

What an up and down game for the Chicago Cubs tonight.  The offense was dead for the first six innings of the game as they could not move a runner along and killed any sort of hope to score with inning ending double plays.

It was Rich Hill however that kept the team in the game as the threw seven strong innings and striking out seven Brewer batters.  An outstanding starting performance for Hill, exactly what the team needed tonight as they have a short bullpen after the team optioned Carmen Pignatiello to Triple A Iowa when Alfonso Soriano rejoined the team.

In the 7th inning, Cliff Floyd was hit by a pitch to lead off, then with Floyd stealing, Mark DeRosa reached safely on a grounder into the hole between shortstop and third.  With two runners on and 0 outs, Jacque Jones came up and drilled a double to the right-center field gap that scored Floyd and Derosa.  The Jones doubled tied the game up at 3-3.

Jason Kendall then flight out to right which brought up pitch hitter Daryle Ward who was hitting for Hill. Ward was intentionally walked and Soriano followed up with a flyout to rightfield.  With two outs and runners on the corners, Ryan Theriot hit a sharp ball to Linebrink the Brewers pitcher and he was unable to handle it and was charged with an error.  On the play Jones scored from third, Ward advanced to second, and Theriot was at first base.  Felix Pie came in and ran for Ward at second base and it was a good thing that he did because Derrek Lee came up and singled to left field and Pie scored from second to push the lead to 5-3.

Bob Howry and Ryan Dempster finished out the game for the bullpen as they did not allow a run in the 8th or 9th innings.  Great job guys!  Way to hold the lead.

This was a huge come from behind win for the Cubs tonight.  First off it was against the Brewers who are now down 2.5 games after dropping tonights game.  The Cardinals continued to stay hot as they beat up on the Astros and are now in second place of the division.  It is the Cubs, Cards, and Brewers with the Cubbies ahead by two games.  Will they stay there?  Time will only tell but we all sure hope so!

I’ll just catch to the chase today as I’m pretty pissed off with out the last inning of the Cubs and Diamondbacks game went.  Why in the damn world do you have your two base runners attempting to steal third and second base with 0 outs?  I don’t care if Jason Kendall makes any sort of contact, in most cases, if he makes contact the least that happens is you have Mike Fontenot at third base if Kendall grounds into a DP?  Well what happens?  Kendall strikes out and Fontenot is thrown at third ending pretty much all hopes of any sort of game tying run in the ninth.

Stupid move by the coaching staff if you ask me.  Say Kendall strikes out, but you still have runners on second and first but Ryan Theriot and Jacque Jones are due up.  Theriot makes good contact, and ended up walking, and Jones grounded out at first by a nice diving stop by Tony Clark, but what would have been had the damn runners not been trying to steal during the Kendall at bat?  I guess we will never know…

As it stands know, the Cubs are 1.5 games up on the Brewers but only 2 games up on the damn Cardinals.  I’m not scared of the Brewers at this point, it is the damn Cardinals that are playing red hot baseball that I’m scared of.  The Cubs had better take two of three against the Brewers during their mid-week series or this season isn’t going to end up in the Cubs favor.

What do you all think?  Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts on the 9th inning of todays game.

- Cliff

The offense didn’t get the big hits that they needed on Saturday night as the Cubs fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks 1-3.  All the offense could muster was a RBI single by Aramis Ramirez in the 6th inning.

Ted Lilly pitched pretty well and only allowed two earned runs during his six innings.  He did strike out eight and didnt walk anyone.  We would usually expect the Cubs to win when their starting pitcher throws like that but last night Doug Davis and the Diamondbacks was just that much better.

The Cubs do remain 1.5 games up on the Brewers and 3 games up on the Cardinals.  We really need a win to close out this series and then play some good baseball against the Brewers when they face off on Tuesday.

Sean Marshall through six strong innings last night and then Carlos Marmol, Bob Howry, Michael Wuertz, and Ryan Dempster finished off the game as the Cubs extended their Central Division lead to 1.5 games over the Brewers.

Marshall really only had one bad pitch and that was a first pitch fastball that he through the the Diamondbacks pitcher Micah Owings who hit it into the left field seats for a homerun.  Other then that Marshall was pretty dominate as the Diamondback hitters were aggressive all night and popped a lot of balls up.

The Cubs offense got off to a really good start as they were able to push across two runs in the top of the first.  Derrek Lee singled that brough in Ryan Theriot and then Mark DeRosa singled which scored Lee.  The Cubs would not score again until the sixth inning when Aramis Ramirez hit a sac fly that plated Jacque Jones.  We should mention that Jones also went 4-5 on the night to continue his hot streak.

It was a big ninth inning that sealed the deal for the Cubs however.  They scored three insurance runs off a wild reliver who couldn’t find the strikezone, and when it was a strike, the ball got it hard.  DeRosa, Felix Pie, and Jason Kendall all scored in the ninth inning to make it a 6-1 game.  The D-backs did score once in the bottom of the inning but it was nearly enough.

The same two teams will face off Saturday night.  It will be Ted Lilly starting for the Cubs and Doug Davis starting for the Diamondbacks.  Lets win another one Cubbies!

The Chicago Cubs dropped the final game of the three game series to the SanFrancisco Giants yesterday 1-4.  With the loss the Cubs are now up a half a game on the Brewers who did not play on Thursday, and three games up on the Cardinals.

Carlos Zambrano made two bad pitches in the game that accounted for all four Giants runs.  A two run single by Dave Roberts, and a two run homer by Giants pitcher Matt Cain was all the Giants needed.  Zambrano has had a few bad starts in a row now if you don’t count the three innings he pitched on Sunday against the Cardinals.  He has yet to pick up that 15th win of the season as his record now stands at 14-10.

The will begin a three game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight.  It will be Sean Marshall facing off against Micah Owings for the Diamondbacks.  First pitch should be around 8:40 central time so be prepared to stay up late!