A few thoughts...

* None of these wins this year has been easy.

* The CCO hinted at the possible ascension of the Shark. Hmmm, I wonder if a trade is brewing.

* Speaking of trades, I wonder if Detroit (The biggest disappointment in baseball) would consider dealing Edgar Renteria. Edgar is a much better player in the NL. I also believe that Jim Hendry scouted him when he was with Florida.

* I'm watching Boston pummel NYY right now (7-1 third inning) Man, do they go deep into counts and just wear down starting pitchers.

With the way the Phillies have man-handled the Cubs since last year, it was nice to see we were able to take advantage of the breaks we had. Right-on Neil...a couple of years ago that would have been a routine loss; especially since we played pretty bad today.

**Cedeno's recentl patience at the plate might land him some serious playing time.

**With 12 pitchers active on our team, Soto might never get a full day off! He does not act like a rookie.

Jim TP,

Renteria would be great! ... he's always been better in the NL. I just doubt that the Tigers would move him after dealing Hernandez and Jurrens for him in the offseason.

Let's hope some teams with good pitching fall back in the standings so that a aolid pitcher will be available in trade come July.

Id kill for Edgar Renteria.

But I would more prefer a legit pitcher to pitch behind or Zambrano OR maybe steal a guy who could pitch ahead of Z!

Good win. Not pretty, but good. Cedeno is turning my head, I admit. Heres to hoping he keeps it up!

Jim,

I would have to think the same thing about Samardzija. I would have to think one of two things...either Marquis or Lilly will have been traded, or Hill would have to be sent down for that to happen. If it were my choice, I'd say trade Lilly while his follow is, perhaps, at its peak, and can only go down from here on out despite what he may accomplish--good or bad. Marquis doesn't have much value at all, but at least Lilly will command 1-2 top flight prospects, along with one or 2 two low level prospects.

I wonder how much patience the management will have with the following guys (injury or not): Hill, Lilly, Marquis, Pie, Theriot, Cedeno, Howry, and Eyre.

It would seem that all of these guys I just mentioned have either run out of time to prove themselves, or have rendered themselves ineffective with their performances. In Eyre's case, he was ineffective almost all of last year and this spring as well. Howry has struggled mightily out of the gate, as he did last year as well. Theriot has proved himself as a valuable bench guy, but nothing more.

I wonder about Pie and Hill the most. Management has already proved a lack of patience with each Remember Hill's difficulties to start his career. Management did not have patience for him to learn on the job, even with a terrible team on the field. Pie also has a short leash. The good thing is, everyone, including management, has now seen Johnson return back to earth, so perhaps Pie will be given a fair shot again. I really believe Lilly should be traded before the All-Star break...hopefully well before it before his value drops considerably. He just isn't effective anymore. I understand that many think Marshall just can't cut it, but please for the love of everything.....he friggin' posted the same ERA as Hill, but just lost stamina toward the end of the year....The dude has earned the right to be in the rotation as much as anyone, and I loved the way he pitched in relief today, attacking hitters, and he did not back down against Howard either.

I'd love this rotation...and lineup:

Z
Dempster
Hill
Lieber
Marshall

lineup:
Soriano
Pie (to see better pitches)
Lee
ARAM
Fukodome
Soto
DeRosa
Cedeno

I, too, love Cedeno's recent, and I admit---surprising patience at the plate. I'm glad we got the W today....hopefully we'll string a lot more together

Good thing your not jumping the gun on Lilly Aaron. 2 starts and he is ineffective. Dude you are way to negative, try to find something positive about the team. Jump on in the water is warm. It will make you much happier.

I agree with Jim. We're 12 games into the season and already talking about who we have to unload. Keep in mind that last year at this time we were 4-8 and everyone was panicking. This year we're 7-5 and Lou already knows who he trusts and who he doesn't.

Remember that baseball always has a way of leveling off. Especially in such a long season. Lilly will find his way and be an over .500 pitcher, Hill will find the strike zone, Soriano will carry the team for a few two week stretches, and Howry will dominate at times when the weather warms up.

This is why the trade deadline is at the end of July, not the end of May, because by then teams really have a solid feel for what their team is made of. Have some patients Cub fans.

Go Cubbies!!!

Aaron,
I totally agree with you! I feel like I am the only guy who sees this too when I speak of it. Pie isn't "there", Lilly and Hill aren't effective and, I hope to God I'm wrong. We put too much on Hill, and Lilly is a 500 pitcher,74-68. He'll give you the innings but he's getting older. He had his "good year last year, meaning, he moved from the American league, and batters haven't seen him before. They have films and coaches that look at this stuff and pick apart pitchers in situations and stuff. So this year, after Lilly having a pretty good year last year, won't be as effective. You need guys who can throw 90's mid 90's with placement. This is MLB, you got to have some heat, not ALL the time, but when your off a little, you need to bust some guys inside or on the corners, with some smoke. Perfect example who lost is Barry Zito. I can throw harder than him, Hey, look at Jamie Moyer. He had it, but just can't do the same thing like he did years earlier. Mid 80's isn't there, even if you are lefty. That's my opinion, and like I said, I hope I'm wrong. Perhaps that's why I am not a coach or GM in MLB.

Hill has pitched some very good baseball over the last year and a half. I can't believe Lou is now skipping his next start to keep Marquis on regular rest ... this is going to come back to bite us. Why do the Cubs mess with the heads of their young players???

Well - my $.02. I agree with a couple of you, that Hill is a big disappointment right now. Pie frankly, is hitting-challenged and truly looks lost at the plate. I would think Lou is pulling his hair out with how he can disguise his "automatic outs". As of this writing, they are Pie, and Soriano. Soriano with two strikes is dead meat. This means that the top of the order is a black hole - very tough when compared to the other top NL teams. Vittorino, case in point. We have a ways to go this year to be as good as the Phils. It was eye-opening for me. I would think most of you may have realized this, as well.

As far as Rich Hill is concerned, the young man just does not have the confidence he has exuded during his dominating starts for the Cubs. Will it return? We'll see. As stated by the illustrious Webmaster, Marquis did about what is to be expected - and we reached the Golden Run Total that Lou likes to see for a potential W. We all know that Lilly is not a #2 pitcher - right now - its all we got, other than Marshall, as a LH. FORTUNATELY, we have Jon Lieber, which could be the most important acquisition Jim Hendry made during the off season. One thing is very sure: our underperforming pitchers better get their shit together, and quickly.

David...I agree.

Now's the time for teaching, coaching, and mentoring, not banishing.

The coaches need to reinforce to Pie to cut down on the swing and use all fields...and create some batting exercises to funnel that. And Hill needs to attack v. finesse. This is why we supposedly have coaches. To teach, for goodness sake!

I don't know...you look at the Ellsworth's, Pedroia's, McCanns and Francoures and these guys get the comfort that they are going to play...even during the rough patches. We just seem so eager to play with these kids heads (as you mentioned). Balance between vets and youth would be nice!

Well, at least our off days are coming at perfect times. I still think Lilly will be okay, but he needs to figure it out this week and give us a good outing. It would make everyone sleep alot better if Lilly or Hill come out and have a good outing their next start.

It is good to see Samardjza (2-0 with a .75 ERA) and Gallagher (1-0 with a 1.00 ERA) off to a good start this year.

Let's remember who Lilly has faced so far this year before we start talking about trading him.

He's faced a Milwaukee team that MURDERS lefties, one of the best offenses in all of baseball in Philly. And a Pittsburgh team that has guys by the names of McClouth and Nady and Doumit, etc. who are hitting out of their minds right now.

Lilly will be just fine. Have patience with him.

Hill on the other hand, I've never thought he was going to be a great starter. He's a two-pitch pitcher (fastball & curve). To be an effective starter you need at least 3 good pitches, and he doesn't have them.

Bullpen guys can get away with two pitches. Gagne and Hoffman have made careers out of being fastball/changeup guys. K-Rod and Kerry Wood (now), fastball/slider. Marmol, fastball/slider. Just to name a few...

I think Hill could be a dominant lefty specialist and he could get away with only having two good pitches. And guess what? We have an opening in our pen right now for that very position!

My suggestion (are you listening Lou?) - Move Hill to the pen, and call up Samardzija. Go with a rotation of Z, Samardzija, Lilly, Marquis and Dempster.

Z and Samardzija could be that 1-2 punch of power pitchers. Something that is necessary to win in the playoffs.

Hill doesn't need to be demoted or traded. He just needs to be moved to a position where he can thrive. And that's the pen.

Back to baseball--after finishing and filing tax returns, paying $3.50 per gal. for regular gas and hearing repeatedly from our Senator Bayh that his candidate Hillary has a spine of steel. You wonder how she gets through airport security. Is this a great country or what?

I share the enthusiasm for what Gallagher and Samardzjia have done so far. Each likely needs 8 to 10 starts at AA or AAA to best prepare for a shot at the bigs. We won't know whether Lilly, Hill and Marquis are capable of getting on track until they have three more starts--so we might as well think positively for that time frame. It's nice to have a 4 like Lieber and potentially solid 5's like Hart and Marshall to give the rotation a boost. David and the rest of us who say we will have to get a stud pitcher to go with Z are on target too--if we are to be really good. I think Murton and Marquis are tradeable as are a few of our prospects.

Indiviually and team-wise, form usually shows up before long. In the NL, form isn't yet showing. There are 6 teams with winning records, and 3 of them are in the supposedly weak Central Div.

Adam in Iowa: "starters must have 3 pitches to be successful" - Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling disagree with you completely. Despite that they each throw a crappy slider every 1,000,000 years, they are mainly fastball/split. Jason Schmidt (when throwing hard) proves you wrong as well, as he was fastball/change.

I think Adam is right more often than not regarding starting pitchers needing more than two pitches. You do have the occasional Randy Johnson/Nolan Ryan types, like those Hubert mentions, who are so overpowering that they can be effective throwing fastballs and sliders that have movement. The fact that they can throw them to spots and eventually start changing speeds is about the equivalent of having an additional pitch.

There are a lot more Maddux's, Peavy's, Webb's and Buehrle's with multiple pitches and speeds than there are guys who mostly throw it past hitters. I do disagree with Adam that Hill could be an excellent lefty reliever. He doesn't have the dominant fast ball or slider that most of the good relievers have, and he would have to throw a lot more strikes.

Mark,

I guess you could say I've taken a beating for my views on here, but the funny thing is...I'm right...and so are you. Usually it takes til the end of the season for people to finally realize that. Last year I was clamouring for OBP, and said that we were grounding into far too many doubloe plays, and that Marquis just wasn't going to cut it, along with cautioning against Fontenot.

I guess you could say most of the ragging I get is from my comments about Hendry, whom I truly think is way overvalued by many fans, especially those on here...In fact, he's never been mentioned in the top 15 of all the GM's in the game, despite having about the 4th or 5th highest payroll in the game.

I've admitted when I've been wrong before....others haven't when they make pointed comments directly on me....but I man up, and they don't. What does that tell you?

I'm an eternal optimist, but a realist at the same time. Every damn year I start out by thinking we'll win it all, and I truly believe it. But when you start talking championship, you have to be critical of what you have, and match it up to other teams that you'll be going against, and be realistic about whether you truly have a shot. It's obvious Marquis will NOT cut it in our rotation. As Albert Pujols said, Marquis ran himself out of time by not listening to Duncan, and constantly pitching into trouble....it really pissed off his teammates who would stick him to a nice lead, only to see it evaporate in the bottom half of the inning when he took the mound. All I commented on before was that Lilly struggled in spring training with his command and got torched, and it has continued into the season. For anyone that thinks he's a true #2, please reference his historical stats. For anyone thinking the same of Dempster, please do the same. Think of other rotations we'd potentially come up against in the playoffs:

Braves: Smoltz, Glavine, Hudson
Mets: Santana, Maine, Pedro
Padres: Peavy, Young, Maddux, Wolf
Dodgers: Penny, Lowe, Kuroda, Billingsley
D'Backs: Webb, Haren, Johnson, Owings
Brewers: Sheets, Suppan, Gallardo

While our rotation is NOT terrible by any stretch of the imagination...if you combine it with our offense and lack of plate discipline, and stack it up against the teams I just listed with better rotations, then you are not exactly giving yourself a good chance in the playoffs. About the only team you'd think wouldn't have much of an offense (on paper---given historical stats) the D'Backs, still dissected us in the postseason last year

Anyway....that's all I've ever done is just comment according to what happens on the field. The ridiculous thing that was posted the other day about me was terribly inaccurate. Someone said I never say anything positive, and if they recalled....last year I had to defend myself multiple times....even copying and pasting what I said in other posts to prove my point.....

Anyway, I hope we can put a string of wins together...and as you said Mark, I just hope I'm proved wrong.

I hope Marquis turns it around, that Howry stops sucking, that Lilly can be a true #2, that Dempster keeps up what he's doing the whole year, that Pie really is the real deal, that Theriot or Cedeno can be an everyday player for us at SS and support us offensively....and Hill returns to '07 form....I hope all of that, because I'm an optimist, but I comment on what I see....Mark does the same, and Jim (Tinley Park) has done the same as well.

Be real people....don't just mock someone's view because it differs from yours, and say they're always negative when that's not the case

Bryan...

Whether someone's right or wrong isn't really the deal. It's that everyone here is entitled to a point of view, and if presented properly, should be respected as that...another point of view.

Personally, I enjoy your perspectives Aaron. I may not always agree 100%, but you demonstrate a passion in your own way, the same passion we all tend to have here.

Aaron:

You are one of my favorites. You seem pretty intense
and I love that. For the super majority of the time I agree with you. We may disagree about Hendry, but I remember last year you said that he doesn't think outside the box and you went on and thought of some very good trade ideas. (I forgot exactly who was involved) Hendry doesn't think out of the box like an Epstein or Schurholtz and he likes to play safe when it comes to trading Major league talent.
He may have been burned in those two sepereat deals with Florida. Willis for Clement/Alfonseca and
Mitre, Reynoso etc for Juan Pierre.

I have not made many comments this year, but I would like to say something that is on my mind....It seems everybody comes in here and says so-and-so does not do this and so-and-so does this. I would venture that fans across the country do the same things. I can see others saying that they don't have the firepower of Lee, Soriano and Ramirez. Or they don't have anyone like Fukedome, or a good catcher like Soto. Or a player like DeRosa who can sub for anyone and still play a good 2nd base. Or a pitcher like Zambrano, etc. Remember, nobody has an all-star at every position. WE HAVE A VERY GOOD TEAM and it is way way too early to break up any part of it. Yes, the pitching is a bit weak after Zambrano, but Dempster is going good right now. Hill and Lilly are having problems, but they will break out soon. And I don't care what anybody says about Marquis...... he showed me a lot on Sunday. Remember he is our 5TH STARTER. He won 12 games and pitched over 200 innings last year. That is damn good for a 5th starter. I am sure those fans across the country wish they had a 5th starter like him. I have trust in Piniella and am sure he will bring out the best in this ballclub. Remember we are only 1/16 through the season. GO CUBS!

Amen Gramps