Per Bruce Miles, the Cubs have called up Felix Pie and purchased the contract of Randy Wells:

It looks like the Cubs will place pitcher Jon Lieber on the 60-day DL to make room for Wells on the 40-man roster.

Randy Wells threw in one game for Toronto this year after the Jays picked him in the Rule 5 draft, then he was returned. He's not really a prospect at age 26, but who knows? An extra arm can't hurt.

Baseball-reference.com has been, for the last couple of weeks, keeping track of all HR hit, because the 250,000th HR in major league history was approaching. One of the least likeable guys in the game, Gary Sheffield, hit it last night in Detroit. According to this list, the very first ML HR was hit by a member of the Chicago National League Ball Club, Ross Barnes, on May 2, 1876.

Other milestone HR hit by or off of Cubs (no matter what the team nickname was at the time, it's the franchise we root for):

#1000: Ned Williamson on July 4, 1884. Williamson set the single season HR record that year (27), a freak because of the short dimensions of Lake Front Park, where they then played their home games (the location is now in Millennium Park).

#10,000: Joe Tinker on September 5, 1903. Oddity: Tinker hit it off Mordecai Brown, a future teammate. It was Brown's only year as a Cardinal; Tinker hit only 31 career HR.

#100,000: hit by Hal King of the Braves off Fergie Jenkins on April 30, 1970.

#120,000: hit by Barry Foote of the Expos off Bruce Sutter on May 24, 1977. Foote had only 81 AB and 3 HR that year; this HR, hit in the 8th inning, tied that game and the Expos won in 15 innings. Less than a year later Foote and Sutter were Cub teammates.

#150,000: hit by the Phillies' John Russell off Rick Sutcliffe on August 3, 1986.

Now, on to the business of getting some home runs -- or better yet, just a lot of runs -- against the Cardinals tonight.

Today's Starting Pitchers

R. Dempster Cubs vs. K. Lohse Cardinals 15-6 W-L 13-6 2.99 ERA 3.76 167 SO 106 72 BB 44 12 HR 16 vs. Hou -- vs. Cubs

Kyle Lohse has one good game (which the Cubs should have won anyway) and one bad game against the Cubs this year. Mark DeRosa and Mike Fontenot have homered off Lohse this season, but the Cub who hits him best is Alfonso Soriano (13-for-32, 3 doubles, 2 HR). Aramis Ramirez is 5-for-8 off Lohse.

Ryan Dempster beat the Cardinals at Wrigley Field on August 10. The opposing starter was Chris Carpenter, who left the game with arm problems; we now learn that Tony LaRussa may try Carpenter at closer. The Cardinals have 30 blown saves this year. Dempster handles most of the Cardinals well, including Albert Pujols. Pujols is hitting .267 (7-for-26, 1 double, 1 HR) lifetime off Dempster and is finally considering elbow surgery in the offseason.

Today's game is on WGN, and cable in the St. Louis area. For more options check the MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Once again, a reminder that you can find the overflow comment threads, including the first pitch thread, on the right sidebar of both the front page and any interior page in the box headed "RECENT STORIES IN GAME THREADS". Today's first pitch thread posts at 7 pm CT, and the overflow comment threads will post at 8 pm, 9 pm and 9:45 pm CT.

Discuss amongst yourselves.