Lou?

Cut Neal Cotts

Move Sean Marshall to the pen

Keep Randy Wells in the rotation

I think the problem is that there was a lack of foresight, or whatever you want to call it, on the part of Hendry and Lou agreed or went along with it. What I mean is that they didn’t think about the worse case scenario of what happens when injuries strike. This has been compounded by the injuries coming early and often. If there was no more than an injury or 2 that required a DL stint to position players then a day here or there of Miles, Gathright or Hill wouldn’t be hard to stomach at all. But with injuries, day to day status of Ramirez, Bradley, Lee and the failure of Fontenot to hit consistently caused the use of Miles WAY TOO often. Lou had no confidence in Gathright and probably rightfully so. Then it created situations where there was a short bench forcing the use of Zambrano as a pinch hitter….I know the fans love to see Z come in to pinch hit and that he is a good hitter for a pitcher but, that’s just it….he’s a good hitter for a pitcher not a guy a team has on their bench to pinch hit. Then there is the idea of the “need” to have a lefty in the bullpen. They need people in the pen who can get batters out, period. Seems to me that most picthers, and hitters for that matter, move up through the minors pitching, hitting against both right handers and left handers. If they can’t get out both, hit both then how do they have enough success to get to the majors????

Well, this was long and rambling. But, I think the Cubs are now reaping what they sowed in spring training in that they failed to forsee/plan for the bumps in the road and put the best arms, regardless of which arm they throw with, in the pen and have a bench that can provide help when needed especially for extended periods of time. On the bright side there are still 4 months left in the season so nothing is so broken that it can’t be fixed. They just have to man up, be willing to “back up the bus” so to speak and replace the pieces that need to be replaced. Spin that it is not a “panic mode” just the “tweaking” of the roster that needs to be done to this team competative.

…………left a word out at the end should be………..“tweaking” of the roster that needs to be done to MAKE this team competative.