What are the opinions on the Cubs moving Zambrano to the bullpen?
I know he had a poor start, but April is historically a poor month for him. Aside from opening day, he hasn’t been that bad. Would a move to the bullpen help the team? Is this Lou’s idea to find a closer if/when Marmol loses his control again?
As a starter, he’d be pitching 200 innings this year. As a reliever he will get maybe 80-90 innings. The other 4 starters are doing well, and they need space for Lilly’s return from the DL. But is having Gorzelanny join Lilly, Dempster, Wells, and Silva really better than including Zambrano in that group?
Why not go out and actually get Looper and try him out as a set-up man? Have the Cubs really entered panic mode already?
Uh… I didn’t say my whine was based on reality did I???
Hmmm???
So there!
OK ok ok… I meant that the Phillies were the NL champs, and that is good enough for me because after all, the AL isn’t real baseball and the Yankees are just plain evil.
How’s that for supporting my thesis with evidence?
I heard that Lou said that he was going to run the club the way he wanted to regardless of how much anybody was being paid, or something to that effect. Does seem a wee bit strange to pay a setup guy all that money, but I don’t get paid to manage a team so who am I to say?
But isn’t it more than the money? Is he giving up on Zambrano as a starter?
Since becoming a full time starter in 2003 his worst ERA is 3.95. His worst record is 9-7.
Compare that to Silva, he has one year with an ERA below 4, and 2 years with a record better than .500
And Gorzelanny had only 1 year that could be considered better than horrible. in 2007, he was 14-10 with a 3.88 ERA. Since then he’s failed to get his ERA under 5.
Something else is going on. I wonder if Zambrano is aching and can’t go for long periods of time.
I think Nippert let a bad call on a strike distract him last night as Youkilis went yard in the 12th, this after the Rangers blew a 4-0 lead and chased Becket out in the 7th with a Hamilton 3 dinger. Freak Neftali Feliz had back to back 101s and several 102s in relief. Somehow he manages to make it look effortless. Kid’s got serious smoke.
Bit of an oddity for the Cardinals, they are 10-5 and have won all five series, two games to one, so far. If they can just do that for the rest of the season.
There have been some ridiculously hot starts by pitchers in the National League. In addition to Halliday (4-0, 0.82), you’ve got Lincecum, Carlos Silva, and Mike Pelfrey all unbeaten with ERA’s under 1. Add Ubaldo Jimenez to that group as he went 7.1 innings today to go to 4-0 with an ERA of 0.95, plus a no-hitter. Livan Hernandez gave up two runs in eight innings today, raising his ERA to 0.75.
Latest Brewer news…a 20(!!!) burger on the hapless Pirates. If there’s any team to get this season even remotely back on track…it’s a set of games against the bucs.
I need Prince to start batting like Prince again. If he doesn’t we will be in for a terrible offseason. He is gonna want lots of money, like Tex and Mauer (or maybe Nathan…can’t remember the specific Twin) money…but the Brewers will say “But you had a down year” and they will argue a bunch until Prince is a Yankee.
Just pay the man a crapload of money and we can keep him and Braun for the next 7 years.
The Yankees turned their first triple play in over 40 years against Oakland. 5-4-3.
Couldn’t have happened to a [del]nicer[/del] higher paid bunch of guys.
Well, actually, it could, i guess, if Jeter instead of Cano had made the transfer at second base.
As it was, the four guys involved in the play, including the pitcher who threw the pitch, are earning $86 million between them this year. That’s more than the complete rosters of 16 out of the 30 MLB clubs. (Actually, i just realized that Teixeira was only DH today; still 1B is where he’d normally be).
So far I haven’t seen anyone besides Lou Pinella claim that moving Zambrano to the bullpen makes sense. I think you’re right that something else is going on. Heck, maybe Z lost a bar bet.
In other notes, the Red Sox were playing badly but have gotten just what the doctor ordered: A visit from the Orioles!
The Orioles are 2-15. I guess everyone was thinking this might finally be the Orioles squad that isn’t really dismal and boring. Apparently not. They’re scoring an average of less than 3 runs per game.
Here’s one for you; The Orioles are apparently headed for their thirteenth straight losing season. Of course, everyone knows the record holders are the current Pirates, for whom 2009 was their 17th straight losing season, if you count 1994, so if the Pirates can pull off an 82-80 soon the Orioles could challenge them. What’s interesting is that in both cases the franchises started their long runs of futility immediately after a few postseason finishes. How about that.
My more immediate worry, in terms of records, is challenging the Tigers for the most losses by an AL team in a single season. Hell, the way the Orioles are going, they could give the 1899 Cleveland Spiders a run for their money.
I never expected great things from the Orioles this year; i didn’t expect a season over .500, and i certainly didn’t expect them to make the playoffs. But i really thought it might be better than this. Even during some of the recent crappy seasons, Baltimore has actually fielded some half-decent offenses; it’s usually been the pitching that really let them down. I know it’s early, but team OPS so far this year is .654 (OPS+ 80) !!! If that continues, i won’t expect to see too many numbers in the W column this year.
GAAAAAH! The Mariners today lost to the White Sox in precisely the same way they lost yesterday: Grab the lead late in the game, only to have closer David Aardsma cough up a home run of precisely the number of runs to needed for the Sox to win in the bottom of the 9th. A commendable display of consistency, at least.
And I continue to be impressed with young M’s starter Doug Fister. Kid throws strikes and mows 'em down.
Mariners, too, though on a smaller scale. Very hot 1995-2001 ('01 being the 116-win season), missed the playoffs despite 93 wins in '02 and '03, then straight into the toilet '04-'08.
David Aardsma didn’t blow the first game. That was Mark Lowe giving up the homer to Andruw Jones. The M’s are Jekyll and Hyde. Very good at Safeco, but bad on the road.
Fister has secured his spot in the rotation when Lee comes back next week. Vargas has been OK. The Hyphen and Snell haven’t been very good. Lee should replace one of them.
Also, the change from good to bad neatly coincides with the departure of Pat Gillick and the arrival of Bill Bavasi. This current resurgence is all Jack Z.