Do people think of Edmonds? Al? I thought everybody said his fielding would be sub par but hopefully his bat would make up for it. Almost seems to be the other way around. I haven’t really seen too much from his bat so far.

I posted this on the overflow because I was inpatient waiting for the recap.

Better catch Johnson or Edmonds? I really am having trouble deciding because initially I would say Edmonds should have been looking over his right shoulder which would have made the catch a little more routine. Then I think about it and with that ball being hit by Pence (I think) it was probably tailing toward right center a bit. I think what Edmonds does so well is his ability to look down to find out where he is in relation to the track and the wall and then relocate the ball quickly. I’m leaning towards Johnson because of how far he covered and the fact he had to dive onto the track. I’m sure I can be convinced otherwise.
Side note, I really hope we don’t wear down Marmol to the point of being ineffective in the later part of the season and the playoffs. I wouldn’t mind giving him time off until the 23rd because the Cubs don’t have another off day until the 9th of June,

Lilly had Berkman looking pretty bad and that was great to see. He didn’t have his best stuff but was still pretty effective. Good to see Aram and Dlee getting some clutch hits. Edmonds’ catch was damn impressive. I don’t buy the whole he makes it harder than it seems. Now, it wasn’t better than Johnson’s but it was still pretty damn impressive.

Silliest thing ever. HRs should be indicated by balls actually leaving the park. Being on or next to or above some magical line just invites umpire error and general confusion. Still, watching Soto’s chubby little legs motoring around the bases was the highlight of my day!

The General Ticket Exchange thread is closed to new posts. I am looking for 2 tickets anywhere at Wrigley for Aug. 9 Cubs/Cards.

First winning ways: Cubs have a boatload of over .400 OBP hitters, including Soto who is leading the club by .001 over Fukudome. In short the club has added or replaced two positions that were not producing offensively last year (catcher & RF) with two offensive leaders. Others above .400 include the three middle infielders; Theriot, DeRosa & Cedeno and don’t forget Ramirez. What this indicates is an increased RUNS SCORED a resulting statistic.

Soriano; I think Piniella is going to see how Edmunds does in the lineup and sees how pitchers react to his presence and production (or lack of) and then that will have an effect on where he eventually moves Fukudome and probably Soriano. Fukudome has led the Cubs in OBP since the start of the year, Theriot (DeRosa and Cedeno have been right there as well), while Soriano has suddenly begun to hit with men on base. The question regarding this hitting with men on base is whether it is an unrelated consequence or not?

My thinking is to eventually move Fukudome to lead off, bat Theriot (or Cedeno) 2nd, Soriano 3rd, then DLee, Ramirez, Soto, Edmunds and DeRosa. Soto could end up being a Johnny Bench-Yogi Berra type of catcher but right now he also leads the club in K’s so the 6th spot is very good for him.

Ascanio, he could be the next coming of a Marmol type of middle reliever and actually begin to relieve some of Carlo’s workload. To me the writing is beginning for the trading of Wuertz as Cotts is also blossoming in AAA. If Ascanio sticks and is as effective as he was this spring it could make things very interesting. Cotts if he can continue to be effective than that could make Wuertz expendable as the Cubs then could have two LHP’s in the pen and balance the club.

Edmunds; I am not sure that Edmunds plays shallow to make a show boating catch, it is that he can make those over the shoulder catches and so he can play shallower. I am going to use an old golf adage: It is not how you got to the hole, it is how many did it take? When I used to compete people who were weekend amateurs used to ask me “how I hit them?” I would answer, “that is never the question, the question is how many times did I?”

Results matter, as in drive for show, putt for dough….meaning….who cares, Edmunds caught a critical 3rd out on a 400 foot drive to the hill, end of inning, end of rally, Cubs won 7-2.

I’ve had the (mis)fortune to see a few games in Houston and I find that ballpark to be ridiculous for several reasons. Obviously the hill and flagpole in center are absurd - MLB should tell them to take them out before a player gets a serious knee or ankle injury. The Crawford boxes are just unnatural as they stick out into left field making what would be an ordinary fence only 315 (shortest in the NL). The upper deck sightlines are awful - you’ll get a great view of the back of someone’s head rather than the field. I could go on, but enough said … The engineers in 1914 did a much better job …

Too many things on my to-do list, so I stayed away from game thread and computer as much as possible last night. But I did sneak a peak at the play-by-play listing on espn.com and had to laugh when I saw “G Soto inside-the-park home run to deep left, A Ramirez and K Fukudome scored.” I couldn’t decide which part was harder to believe – Soto hitting an ITPHR, or Minute Maid having a ‘deep left’. Espn.com has since changed it to ‘deep center’.

I’d watch some part of the game live on my satellite channel and it was good game for you folks. As I wrote, only the downfall part was that I missed Dome’s second basehit as ESPN went over to Boston for Lester’s no-hitter. It was great accomplishment as well.

Dome and Kaz Matsui went same high school, PL Gakuen (PL for Perfect Liberty) – Kaz is elder by 2 years and they played in the same team for a year.
Dome was an infielder and Kaz was a pitcher, and they both played in Koshien tournament (but in different year). Here is some YouTube footage for Kaz and Dome in the tournament.

Dome played for Central League (Dragons) and Kaz played for Pacific League (Lions), and those 2 teams met at 2004 Japan Series. However Kaz already was a Met in that year and Dome was missing the series by fractured left index finger by HBP. Interleague games in Japan started only since 2005, then Monday game was the first game they played together since their high school days.

that i had the same epiphany last night, i was sitting there, watching the game and i said out loud “wow, this team is actually really good”, and it made me happy. I also have no idea how i did it, but i correctly predicted both HR’s when soto and a-ram came to the plate, and they were the only predictions i made, i swear, i have witnesses.

Or is he just in a bad slump? Or could he never hit? There’s even a guy named Jason Dubois who is hitting .250, and Big Red Murton is hitting .368 with close to a hundred ABs.

But he needs to get over it and move on with trying to get better at hitting. Last night Edmonds catch which I will admit was great and I loved to see, would have been a routine catch for Pie. He could be a great player and starting the season in the starting lineup and then losing your job to Jim Edmonds who is 38 and was hitting horrible numbers before we got him would kill my spirits I think. But as long as Jimmy is here he needs to keep making those catches and you won’t hear any guff from me

sure Pie probably would have made that catch (unless his inexperience with the hill would have scared him off, which i doubt). but regardless of why Edmonds plays so shallow, the ability to play that shallow and still make deep catches is HUGE for the Cubs defensively. playing shallow allows him to take away some short base hits and also to hold runners to fewer bases but cutting off balls quicker.

if Pie is so fast (yes, i know that he is) and able to catch balls over his head as well as Edmonds (not sure about this one), then he should play as shallow for the above-mentioned benefits.

When we continue to see defensive contributions from E, good deal. But it doesn’t change the fact that it is unlikely we will see his bat come around, and if thats the case why spend the measly 300k on him, when we could be helping our TOP PROSPECT come around?

Question: Has anyone ever been injured because of that hill? I keep reading all these complaints about it and, while I also think it’s quite ‘strange’ to have out there, I can’t remember any player ever actually suffering an injury because of it. Has it ever happened?

Also… sorry, but Pie (currently) sucks, so go Edmonds. :)

And all of us on this blog compared to Pie throw like little girls. Me above all else!

Another fine example of the good things that can happen when a players runs hard out of the box instead of admiring his handiwork. I can think of one player who may or may not have even made it to second if he’d hit that ball.

That way Marmol would be off Tues, Wed and Thurs.

FWIW—Wuertz has held lefties to a 230/335/388 compared to righties 224/301/358. Not that large of a difference.

That scoreboard (INSANELY huge and in HI-DEF) at the new Nat’s park is nothing shy of INCREDIBLE. God I hate Wrigley while loving the Cubs. Go figure… lol

I agree, and Howry looked GREAT last night, so hopefully he can go back into filling that role… and SOON.

Interesting read from Ken Rosenthal, “The most intriguing possibility, though, is Maddux, who holds the right to veto any deal. Maddux prefers the West Coast, but he might consider rejoining the Cubs or Braves — or uniting with his older brother Mike, the pitching coach for the Milwaukee Brewers.” The entire story is http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8156482/Major-changes-in-store-for-Padres?