found here.

‘’I have to eliminate August. Once I get past August, everything will be back to normal,’’ Zambrano said. ‘’I was thinking about that after the game. Last August wasn’t that good, but I was able to come back, and September and October were good for me. So it’s nothing to worry about.’’

Zambrano said he’s just having problems with his delivery. He was fighting himself on the mound, emotionally if not physically. That prompted Piniella’s first visit, after a four-pitch walk in the second inning to Ryan Doumit.

So I wonder why he’s having delivery problems…

over at Will Carroll’s chat today.

He’s #2 or even #3.

Harden is unhittable, Dempster is a Cy Young candidate, and Zambrano has arm slot issues and a gigantic contract.

Sounds like “I have experience, John McCain has experience, and Barack has a speech he gave in 2002.” ;-)

Seriously, the Cubs need to get Z right, but he’s not the staff ace right now.

Rotation shoud be Harden, Demp, Z, Lilly until further notice.

He can correct mechanics, and can pitch well with suspect arm slot (see last Reds start).

The problem I see is that he’s being paid very well, and refuses to act like an adult. He is rattled at the smallest incident and cannot retain his professionalism when small things go wrong.

He’s 27 years old now and needs to get his head stright, start throwing strikes and act like an adult while he’s on the mound.

He did this last August too. If he were to pitch poorly in consecutive starts in September, then you can start to worry.

…on the Cubs postgame show on ’GN. Kap said that he spoke to a scout and former major league pitcher who speculated that Zambrano might be suffering from some tendonitis in his shoulder. The scout said Z seems to be “shotputting” the ball for the first couple innings until he can get his shoulder to loosen up, then he pitches OK for a little while but tires out rather quickly in the sixth or seventh inning.

I wonder whether a prolonged rest might help. Maybe slot Sean Marshall into one of Z’s starts and see whether that helps? Just a thought.

(which is hopefully sooner rather than later); they will have plenty of time to get Z rest in Sept. by having someone else take his spot once, and taking him out early. If he was hurting so much that he couldn’t pitch effectively – he wouldn’t even be out there. So, obviously if it is tendinitis, then it’s not so bad that is an issue.

If you put together the post season rotation, it goes: Zambrano, Dempster, Harden, Lilly, or Zambrano, Dempster, Lilly, Harden. The Cubs will likely finish with the best record in the NL, so all series will start at home, so you want Demp to start at home. Z goes first b/c then you have the choice to bring him back, or give him an extra day. Lilly might go before Harden just to break up the righties. Harden should go third or fourth simply b/c he won’t come back on short rest, and then they could switch it up for the NLCS, and Harden goes early in the series, and could pitch in relief, or start again in NLCS.

geo adamently yelling at z from behind the plate and showing a calm it down sign. goe is extremely wise beyond his years. his catching is more impressive than his bat and thats saying something.

He’s got a month to get it together for the playoffs.

Like I’ve said many times before, Harden can be this team’s Josh Beckett come October baseball. With all due respect to Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly (and Jason Marquis come to think of it).

Zambrano will be fine. Frankly I’m surprised the sabermagicians and pitch count police led by Cwyers and Dartmouth haven’t hijacked this thread with linear regression analysis suggesting that root cause of Zambrano’s problems dates back to Lou asking him to throw 3 more than advisable pitches on a day when the ambient temperature was 5.4 degrees above norm.