Yes, there are fifteen of them (I made sure to count).

Cubs pitchers brought their strikeout shoes to the ballpark Wednesday night; Ted Lilly, Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood combined for a season-high 15 strikeouts and the Cubs beat the Padres 8-5 in one of those "wasn't as close as the score indicated" games, made closer because Wood wasn't sharp in the ninth inning, allowing three hits and a run to score after two were out.

The big news from yesterday, is, of course, something we have discussed to death here: the Cubs' signing of Jim Edmonds and optioning of Felix Pie to Iowa. There isn't much more to be said: it's done. He's here, will start today, and if he does well and helps the Cubs win, I'm all for it. Now, let me say that on the face of it, I'm against this signing because it makes little sense from virtually every standpoint (baseball: he seems to have little left; clubhouse chemistry: he's acquired a reputation as an aloof loner; and fan support: virtually every Cubs fan hates him). All I can say is that if he indeed is as done as I think he is, that Jim Hendry won't waste any time releasing him and bringing Pie back.

The rest of this recap is happier: the Cubs' offense clicked last night. Everyone except Derrek Lee (and maybe he needs a day off -- he looked tired and went 0-for-5) got a hit and scored a run. Biggest contributors: Geovany Soto with an RBI single and two-run HR, and Alfonso Soriano, a leadoff HR and two-run single.

BCB reader drewishdrewid and his wife Laura joined us last night; nice to see you again, and also Jessica, now known here as Doggie Stalker, in from New York for the weekend. She ate her traditional good-luck tuna sandwich in the bottom of the first inning, and spent much of the rest of the game "visiting" her "other" seats in the terrace reserve, section 209, and staring at the ground. I expect her to do a lot of that this afternoon, when Greg Maddux takes the mound for the Padres.

We can afford to do silly stuff like that now, right? The Cubs are 16-7 at home, are playing well, and despite the fact that we all love Greg Maddux, I want nothing more today than to beat his team (he doesn't have to take the loss, after all). I'll have a game thread up in about three hours. Until then, here are some photos from last night's win.

Kosuke Fukudome doubles in the second inning

Reed Johnson about to catch Khalil Greene's long drive in the 5th

Ryan Theriot rounds third and scores after Aramis Ramirez doubles in the 6th

Padres CF Jody Gerut dives but cannot catch Johnson's double in the 7th

Fukudome & Johnson celebrating the win

Fukudome & Soriano celebrating the win

Click on photos to open a larger version in a new browser window. All photos by David Sameshima

Just before Ted Lilly stroked his RBI single up the middle, I said to Howard, "Man, he has about the worst swing I've ever seen." Howard agreed. Lilly had fouled a couple of balls off and flailed rather wildly at the pitches, looking like he had never stepped in a batter's box before.

And then, suddenly, with runners on first and second, Reed Johnson having been intentionally walked by Dan Haren to get to Lilly, Ted sliced a ball through the infield to score the Cubs' first run and score Mark DeRosa, who had doubled with two out and no one on (love to see that!), to tie the game. Alfonso Soriano hit the next pitch down the left-field line for a double, scoring Johnson, and as it turned out, that was all Lilly needed in the Cubs' impressive 3-1 win over the Diamondbacks. I'm not sure where Lilly learned to hit -- he hit only .137 in 2007 -- but he's now 3-for-11 this year (.273) with a double and two RBI.

You could call this a "statement" game if you wish, but it may be too early to say that. Remember, though the D'backs have looked great in posting, before today, a 23-12 record for the best mark in the major leagues, a year ago at this time the Brewers were 24-10 and a lot of you were wailing, "The Cubs will never catch those guys!" And yet, they did. And though Arizona is playing well, today the Cubs and Lilly and Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood shut them down.

Lilly was outstanding -- he mixed up his pitches really well and struck out ten while walking only two and allowing only three harmless hits. OK, let's call it two harmless hits (one of which, a triple by Stephen Drew past a diving Johnson, might have been caught by Felix Pie if he had been out there), because the first one was a HR by Chris Young in the first inning -- and I was so glad to not see Lilly slam his glove down as he did in the NLDS last October. In the last ten games Young has played against the Cubs (the six regular season games last year, the three in the NLDS and today), he has homered five times. Enough, already.

Fortunately, Lilly shut down the rest of the D'backs lineup, and left it to Marmol and Wood. Marmol caught a break in the 8th when, after allowing a leadoff single to pinch-hitter Augie Ojeda, he struck out Eric Byrnes while Ojeda tried to steal second. The throw came in over DeRosa's head and he had to leap to stop it from going in to CF. The umpires correctly ruled that Byrnes had interfered with Geovany Soto and thus Ojeda was out. No other D'back came near to getting on base after that, and Kerry Wood threw nine pitches, all strikes, in getting a 1-2-3 ninth for his sixth save, after Derrek Lee had hit his ninth HR to give a little more breathing room.

The crisply played game (two hours and 31 minutes) was played in crisp weather more suited to the last time the D'backs were in Wrigley Field, last October 6 (when it was 85 degrees), an official temperature of 46 at gametime, with a wind blowing in. That didn't stop the HR of either Young or D-Lee, though, and I'm sure most of the crowd of 40,236 (probably about 5,000 no-shows today) appreciated the fast pace. I know I did, along with fellow BCB readers mrcubsfan, ihatethecards, and Drew in attendance in the bleachers. Mrcubsfan and ihatethecards introduced me to a man who said his last trip to Wrigley was sixty years ago when he was fourteen years old, to which I said: "It's about time you came back!" And he got to see a nicely played win on his return, too.

Just like that, this team that looked so sloppy on the road the last couple of weeks played a sharp game today. It is possible to have a very successful season playing, say, .600 ball at home (that'd be 49 or 50 wins) and .500 on the road -- do that and you've won 90, which would likely give you the division title. This one snaps a five-game losing streak against Arizona (including the NLDS) and I'm sure the players are happy to have that proverbial monkey off their backs. And with Lilly, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Zambrano all throwing well, can we stop stressing so much about the starting pitching?

Remember: tomorrow's game is on Fox, and the starting time has been set at 2:40 CDT. I'll post a list of cities tomorrow in the game thread -- double bad news: it's only going to 37% of the country and the announcers are Kenny Albert and Mark Grace. (Ugh.) Incidentally, I had to visit the men's room and the timing had it during the 7th-inning stretch. There's nothing stranger than hearing the disembodied voice of Mark Grace coming through the men's room speakers while visiting the troughs. Or maybe that's strangely appropriate, I don't know which.

Finally, I see that a couple of you posted game threads in the FanPost section -- and I'm not sure what happened to the main page posts. If someone could quickly summarize in the comments, I'd appreciate it.

I'm lazy today. So here, you can make up your own recap of the Cubs' 9-3 win over the Cardinals:

The Cubs were shut out by the Nationals 2-0 this afternoon -- the first time they have been shut out this year.

That took 25 games. For perspective, here's a list of the first game in which the Cubs were shut out in the twelve seasons before 2008:

2007: game 11
2006: game 23
2005: game 7
2004: game 19
2003: game 21
2002: game 21
2001: game 23
2000: game 27
1999: game 17
1998: game 13
1997: game 6
1996: game 23

So in all but one season -- and that happened to be a pretty bad year, actually, 2000 -- the Cubs were shut out earlier than the 25 games it took in 2008. This offense is pretty good -- it just got shut down today.

This was posted by BCB reader cwyers in the comments in the overflow thread, and in case you haven't seen that, and even if you have, it bears repeating:

The spread in talent between major league ballclubs is pretty small when you take a step back and look at it from a distance; the Nationals only look like a really bad ballclub when you compare them to other major league teams. And even then, we tend to exaggerate the difference in quality between two teams.

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. The good teams tend to win more and the bad teams tend to lose more, but that’s over a 162 game season. In ONE game, any team in the majors, even the Giants, has enough talent to win.

It’s not a problem about "being in their heads," or being tired, or being mentally weak, or whatever character defects the armchair shrinks like to ascribe to sheer random chance. This happens, and it happens all the time. The difference between the best and worst record in baseball last season was only sixty games of 162.

What you do is you tip your cap to the other team, and you move on to play the next game.

Couldn't have said it better, although I will quibble a bit with one assertion that Colin made: I think the Cubs are tired after playing 13 games in three time zones over the last 13 days. Four different times in that 13-day stretch, they played a night game after a day game, and that can really screw up your body clock, especially considering that the first seven games of this season were all day games, and that's after playing a month of day games in Arizona (there was one split-squad night game during spring training).

(Also, wasn't the difference between best and worst in 2007 thirty games, not sixty?)

This isn't to offer excuses, and you might say, "How can they be tired after not even one month?" But given the cross-country travel of this bizarre "if it's Wednesday, this must be Denver" road trip, switching game times and time zones, I can see how the Cubs would have come out a little bit flat this afternoon.

So, give credit to John Lannan, who kept the Cubs off balance all day, and to Jon Rauch, who had Daryle Ward swinging at a pitch to end the game as if Ward were saying, "Enough of this game, let's go home." The Cubs had two big chances to chase Lannan and put the game away -- in the fifth when they caught a break on Nick Johnson's error and loaded the bases with one out, only to have Ryan Theriot hit into a soul-sucking double play, and again in the sixth when they again had runners on second and third with one out. Groundouts from Mark DeRosa and Ronny Cedeno took care of that.

Too bad, because for the second straight start, Ted Lilly threw pretty well. A pair of two-out singles in the second inning scored the only runs the Nationals got all day. The Nats had only four singles, and the two walks Lilly issued (neither of which were involved in the scoring). Michael Wuertz and Kerry Wood also threw well today, as did Sean Marshall, getting out of the 7th inning after walking pinch-hitter Aaron Boone.

So, as Colin said: tip your cap to the other guys (who the Cubs, under this year's pick 'em schedule, won't see again for almost four months, till late August at Wrigley Field), enjoy the day of rest -- actually, closer to two days off with the next game not being till Tuesday night -- and get ready for another series with the Brewers.

Two series with the Brewers at home in April and none in Milwaukee till July? That's a topic for another day.

What can I say?

What can any of us say after the Cubs completed the most dominant homestand in recent memory -- 7 wins in 8 games, scoring 67 runs (average: more than eight per game) -- and thoroughly dominating both bad teams and good. The Mets are ... well, supposedly they're a good team, but the holes in their rotation, their bullpen and their offense after Jose Reyes and David Wright were glaringly obvious last night and this afternoon. This is why a lot of us who study and follow baseball closely have dismissed the opinions of the so-called experts; this year, after the Mets acquired Johan Santana, the national media (and some of the Chicago columnists, too) anointed the Mets NL champions, implying Santana would win every game he started.

Baseball doesn't work that way, and from what I saw the last two days, the Mets have one dominant starter (who we didn't see), a good closer (who we didn't see either), and a ton of holes in the rest of their pitching staff. Reyes and Wright were non-factors in this miniseries; Carlos Beltran didn't do much, either, and I think Carlos Delgado is in decline.

All of this is just background; the Cubs blew out the Mets again today, 8-1, and once again Ronny Cedeno -- yes, RONNY CEDENO, the guy we made fun of for more than two years, who made enough boneheaded plays to make the Blooper Hall of Fame, suddenly seems to have come of baseball age.

Today, he drove in the first run of the game with a double, hustling to second base as Mets RF Angel Pagan knocked the ball around in the corner, and Kosuke Fukudome streaked home. Then, ONEDEC (Cedeno spelled backwards because he's "turned it around") hit a grand slam in the 8th inning, landing on the street just behind us where a very happy guy wearing an orange T-shirt caught it, just inside the foul pole.

A grand slam -- his first. A double. Five RBI. Playing SS with confidence. This is the guy I've seen in consecutive spring trainings playing this way. Has he finally "gotten it"? It's probably too early to make that judgment off a couple of games. However, I'd say Ronny has earned more playing time; maybe, as the Cubs shouldn't rush Alfonso Soriano back from the DL, they don't have to rush Ryan Theriot back from his back spasms. This is a good problem to have -- too many players getting hot at the same time. You could play Theriot at 2B, Cedeno at SS, and Mark DeRosa in LF, with Reed Johnson in CF -- all of those are hitting well. But then what of Felix Pie? Felix had two more hits today and reminded us of his defensive value with a couple of nice running catches.

Kosuke Fukudome deserves his own paragraph today -- he had three hits and reached base all five times up. He had two walks -- the team drew eight more walks today, which means we're going to have to get used to longer games, with more pitches taken. Win 'em and I'll sit there all night watching the bases get clogged with Cubs.

Not only is the baseball all being played well on the North Side of Chicago, the weather -- which we all feared after seeing 16 games on the schedule in the month of April -- has cooperated. Apart from rain on Opening Day and a little drizzle last Saturday, it's been sunny most days, including today, when it was supposed to rain, and the temperature soared into the mid-70's, with a nice breeze. It's really only been brutally cold a couple of days.

This raised the question in my mind, so I asked Dave: "What comes first? Team chemistry and a team you 'like', or does winning breed that?" He didn't really have an answer and neither do I. It's the old "chicken and the egg" question. We like this team because it's winning, and we're learning to like new players like Johnson, and new-to-good-play guys like Cedeno. I think this breeds good team chemistry -- it's got to be more fun to come to work every day for these guys when they are winning. Dave did say that the way this team is playing reminds him a little of the 2005 White Sox -- getting every break, a little luck, timely hitting and good pitching. It's a little too soon, I think, to make such comparisons. As for me, I'm enjoying the ride, and I'm sure you are too.

Ted Lilly threw very well today -- he had one shaky inning in which the Mets scored their only run, and another in which he walked the bases loaded and got out of it with a couple of popups. The 107-pitch outing (64 strikes) got his ERA "down" to 7.30, and that first win is always nice to have. Now, he needs to build on this for his next start.

I sat with BCB reader Damen Jackson today; always nice to see Damen and talk baseball. He took quite a few photos which he'll either post himself or email to me. One of them will be of the Mets broadcast booth, which had a large sign reading "ALOU" on it before the game, later moved inside. This puzzled us, as Moises Alou isn't even traveling with the team while he's on the DL. If any Mets (or Alou) fan knows why that was there, enlighten us, please. BCB reader southsidecubsfan also stopped by to say hello this afternoon.

So the Cubs go on the road the hottest team in the NL -- since the 0-2 start, that's 14 wins in 18 games, and 7 of 8, one of the best April starts in recent team history. Yes, there is a long way to go -- and I was reminded of that in checking the future schedule; this two-game series is the only time we'll see the Mets at Wrigley this year (barring a postseason meeting), and it will be exactly five months from today -- September 22 -- when the two clubs will meet again, in the penultimate series at Shea Stadium.

Finally, a couple of notes: thanks to BCB reader northsider who posted the overflow game thread, since I forgot to do so this morning... and I also heard today that there may be concerts at Wrigley again this summer, sometime after the All-Star break. No, I don't know who yet. Now, take it easy, savor this wonderful just-completed homestand, and relax till tomorrow night's game in Denver.

Click here for my scorecard

This afternoon was not Mike Fontenot's finest hour as a major leaguer. In fact, it was likely his worst -- he left seven men on base, coming up three times with runners on (once with the bases loaded, twice with two on) and making outs all three times. If he can get even two of those runners in, the Cubs would have been in the game at least till the seventh inning, when Ken Griffey, Jr. smacked his 596th career HR into the teeth of Chicago's typical April lake breeze off Jon Lieber, a three-run shot that turned a somewhat-manageable 5-2 game into a 8-2 rout, and the Reds beat the Cubs 9-2 this afternoon. To make matters worse, the HR came after Ryan Theriot bobbled a routine ground ball and then Fontenot failed to cover first base when Lieber got Ryan Freel to hit a comebacker. Lieber did his job -- got the first two hitters he faced to hit ground balls. The infielders failed today.

Still, you'd take two out of three every series, wouldn't you? Yes, it's nice to think "sweep" when you've won the first two, but it's hard to sweep a team, no matter how good or bad they are, or are perceived to be. The Reds have some pretty good hitters and they showed us that today -- particularly Joey Votto. Votto got two fat pitches from Ted Lilly, and hit the first one for a bases-clearing double and the second for a two-run homer. Other than that, I thought Lilly threw a pretty decent game, his best start all year (it won't show up well in the box score, of course, five earned runs in six innings); at last he had the command that seemed to elude him all spring and in his first two outings in the regular season.

The Cubs had plenty of opportunity against the fireballing Edinson Volquez, who is that typical "throws-hard-but-you're-not-quite-sure-where-it's-going" young pitcher. He walked four and gave up four hits, but thanks mostly to Fontenot, he gave up only one run; the Cubs stranded seven through four innings. Further complicating things was the fact that with two on and nobody out in the fourth, the Cubs down 3-1, Henry Blanco decided to bunt. With Lilly, a terrible hitter (.111 career), up next. If you're going to do that, lay down a suicide squeeze, which would score a run (if properly done) and leave a runner on second. According to Lou in his postgame news conference, which I heard on the radio going home, the bunt sign wasn't on.

Which raises this question: if the bunt sign wasn't on, why didn't someone talk to Blanco after the first missed bunt attempt, to tell him to knock it off? Blanco bunted foul on strike three, after which Lilly sacrificed the runners to second and third, which is where we pick up the Fontenot story again.

All this on a "bonus sunshine" day -- the forecast was for clouds all day, but the temperature at game time was 59 degrees (felt warmer, and probably was -- that reported temperature is usually the 1 pm lakefront reading, and the lake cooling hadn't gotten to the ballpark by then), with bright sunshine. About 2:00, the wind shifted from light southeast to strong northeast, and both HR -- by Votto and Griffey -- would have been far up into the bleachers on an ordinary day. Quite a number of fly balls hit in the later innings -- one caught by Reed Johnson in the 9th in particular -- got pushed in a long distance by the wind.

Good signs today: a good outing from Michael Wuertz, who has needed one. He dispatched the Reds 1-2-3 in the 9th inning, not that it mattered by that time. Reed Johnson had four hits today and played a good CF. I would imagine he'll be playing CF vs. the two Pirates LHP on Saturday and Sunday.

There isn't too much more to say about this. Some days you're just going to look bad and lose. Onward to tomorrow.

That's the only real news, and the best news, to come out of today's disastrous 8-2 Cub loss to the Brewers, dropping the Cubs' record to 0-2 for the first time since 2001. (The good news is, if this team replicates what that one did, the 2001 Cubs won 12 of their next 15 and got into contention.)

I know this because Lou Piniella announced it at his postgame press conference, live on WGN radio, heard as I was driving home. He was asked if Soriano would be "left there", and without specifically saying so, he pretty much indicated that yes, he would.

Soriano had another bad day, coming up three times with runners on base (first base in the third and fifth, first and second in the seventh), and two out, and making the third out each time.

The first two times, he could have put the Cubs back in the game, as they trailed only 1-0 in the third, and 4-1 in the fifth. By the seventh, at 5-2, it was beginning to get out of hand, and the Brewers pushed across three runs in the 8th and 9th off Piggy and Bob Howry (who looks lost out there so far this year), and the 8-2 score doesn't really indicate that the Cubs played reasonably well up to the sixth inning, when a Geovany Soto throwing error and a Kevin Hart wild pitch punctuated a really bad inning.

Let the record show that the very first, but probably not the last, Hart-to-Hart matchup (Kevin vs. Corey) resulted in a walk. Corey scored after stealing two bases off Soto, who's not looking good so far behind the plate, though he hit his first HR of the year today. Derrek Lee also homered, to left field. I got an email from Tyler Bleszinski, proprietor of the SBN site Athletics Nation during the game, congratulating me on catching the Lee HR, which I didn't. I told him the HR was two sections over from us -- to which Blez replied, "Damn, Al, you have a wicked doppelganger out there. Dude looked just like you." There's also some conversation about this at Viva El Birdos.

I have met Blez on a couple of occasions, so he knows exactly what I look like. Scary thought, that there's a clone of me and he was in the bleachers today.

Anyway, those HR were the sum of the Cub offense; Mark DeRosa hit into a DP, ruining one inning, and for some inexplicable reason, Aramis Ramirez was running on a 3-2 pitch to Kosuke Fukudome, and even the slow-armed Jason Kendall could throw him out after Dome struck out. Ramirez had walked after D-Lee's HR and I thought maybe the Cubs might have mounted a comeback in that inning. It got worse when DeRosa, the next hitter, doubled, which would have driven in Ramirez and made the score 3-2 and maybe gotten some early action in the Brewer bullpen.

When Ted Lilly -- who at least didn't slam his glove down when Rickie Weeks hit the first pitch of the game about 40 feet directly over our heads onto Waveland -- got into trouble, Jon Lieber got up several times in the bullpen. Why get your long man up that many times if you're not going to use him? Today would have been a perfect time for Lieber to throw a couple of innings, instead of using four guys that you might need tomorrow.

By the seventh inning, there seemed to be more people in the sunny bleachers than there were in the entire rest of the ballpark; when we lost the sun as it dipped behind the upper deck, we all abandoned the LF corner and moved over to right field, still in the sun (yes, it makes a HUGE difference when the temperature is still only in the 40's).

BCB readers drewishdrewid and also Drew (from Rockford) and his girlfriend sat with us today, an entire "Drew" section, and BCB reader steinmer stopped by to say hi.

Notes: sculptor Lou Cella came down to the ballpark early in the morning and carved an apostrophe on the Ernie Banks statue, where it had earlier read "LETS PLAY TWO". I don't have a photo of the new version, but here's one that David took the other day before it was unveiled, where you can see the lack of punctuation:

as always, click on photo to open larger version in a new window. Photo by David Sameshima

Incidentally, this is a good spot to announce that David has accepted my offer to be placed on the masthead as the Official Photographer of BCB. In the future I'll set him up so he can post photos himself; I hope in that way we can get many more photos here at the new BCB. His BCB user name is "holymackerel". And in one more site note, I may not have time to read through every comment in the two game threads. Please let me or Trei know if there were any problems today.

Onward to tomorrow, when Ryan Dempster will attempt to help the Cubs salvage one game out of this series, and we'll have a new leadoff man (didn't I tell you that Soriano would wind up there?).

Last September, I started posting my scorecards and a lot of you seemed to like that. Finally had time to get around to scanning the one from Monday, and also today's (Monday's may be a little hard to read because it got wet):

Scorecard from Monday, March 31, 2008

Scorecard from Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Note: I have two extra bleacher tickets for tomorrow's game, price $22 each. If you want them, email me using the link on the left sidebar. I'll meet you at the ballpark

Finally, if you look around some of the streets a couple of blocks south of Wrigley Field, you'll see cars and billboards from the era around the 1930's. The movie "Public Enemies", to star Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, among others, is filming in the neighborhood. Rumor has it that Depp's been spotted, so if you're in the area, keep your eyes open. You might just see him around. If only he could pitch.

All you need to know about last night's 10-2 Cubs loss to the Mariners is contained in this note from the above link:

Raul Ibanez added a line-drive, two-run shot barely missing an inflated cow atop the right-field fence.

That's not all that happened last night, of course (Seattle hitters pounded five other HR off Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis, and in less baseball-related news, Kosuke Fukudome was photographed next to a Las Vegas showgirl, looking extremely uncomfortable), but that note made me laugh, as did the HR itself when I saw it, which was just about the last thing I saw before going to sleep to get up for work this morning. Good thing, too.

Let's hope that what Marquis and Lilly did DOES "stay in Vegas", as the saying goes, because that's not a good sign if it doesn't. The only other Cub who pitched last night, Kevin Hart, threw a quiet scoreless inning. The linked article also says:

Manager Lou Piniella expects to use all of his bullpen over the two days in Las Vegas.

Matt Murton may be traded before tomorrow. Or not:

The Cubs don't want to rush the process, in part to make sure they get the best deal possible but also because an injury in one of the two exhibition games in Las Vegas could create a need for Murton on the roster.

Gordon Wittenmyer writes that Lou says both Sean Marshall and Carmen Pignatiello will pitch today, and I would also expect Kerry Wood to throw an inning. Meanwhile, remember Michael Wuertz? Quietly, he's had the best spring on the staff, throwing nine innings, allowing five hits and no runs, with no walks and 13 strikeouts. Lou, for his part, spent some down time "using some of the casino services:

Were the services kind to him? "The casino services were cooperative," replied Piniella, who likes to play the ponies at the sports book.

Ryan Dempster starts today against Seattle's Jarrod Washburn. The Cubs will be the "away" team today and bat first. As last night, there's radio in Chicago (WGN) and Seattle (KOMO), TV on WGN-TV and also MLB Audio and MLB.TV via MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday (2007 version)

MLB.com Gameday (2008 version)

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Back in Chicago and back to work early tomorrow morning, I won't get to see much of this televised game, maybe the first couple of innings.

Hope the rest of you can fill in the details.

• Matt Murton's headed to Iowa. Or a deal to another team -- Jim Hendry is actually well-respected among players because he does try to find another situation for someone he can't fit into the Cubs. That article also says Kevin Hart's likely made the team:

  [Lou] Piniella hasn't said anything to pitcher Kevin Hart, who also appears to have made the final 25. Hart figures he'll get on the bus with the team until he's told to get off.

  "That's a good way to look at things," Piniella said.

• TCTSNBN today says that MLB should investigate A-Rod and Magglio Ordonez for steroid use. Why? Because Jose Canseco said so. Great logic there.
• Bruce Miles says Piggy may have turned Lou's head. To which I say, "Good! He's earned the spot."

Tonight, Ted Lilly goes against Seattle's Carlos Silva. The Cubs will be the "home" team tonight and bat last. It's on radio in Chicago (WGN) and Seattle (KOMO), on WGN-TV and on MLB Audio at the MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday (2007 version)

MLB.com Gameday (2008 version)

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- Today is the final day of Cactus League play. For those of us who have been here in Arizona for a while, it will be "weather shock" to return to the chilly Midwest tonight.

In the meantime, one more day in the sunshine before I fly home tonight. Today's game starts an hour earlier than usual so that the ballclubs can break camp, and the Cubs head to Las Vegas tonight for their two-game series vs. the Mariners this weekend.

For those of us (most of us, I'd say) who grew up with the Cubs and WGN, here's a little bit of the history of WGN and the Cubs and an announcement that there will be a two-hour special called "Cubs Forever: Celebrating 60 Years of WGN TV and the Cubs", at 6 pm CT on April 20.

Kerry Wood doesn't want any special "entrance song" when he comes in to close games:

"I don't think Wrigley is that type of ballpark," Wood said. "That's more of a generational thing for closers— Trevor Hoffman started it with 'Hells Bells,' and [Mariano] Rivera and Billy Wagner and so on and so on.

"Fans are so loud at Wrigley Field in the ninth inning I don't think you'd be able to hear any noise on that sound system anyway. I've never really thought about what song I'd use."

To which I say: good for him. Based on what I've heard for him coming in during ST games, it'll be really loud. Cheering.

The other day when I posted spring training attendance figures, I inadvertently left out one game. The correct figures are: in 14 dates, the Cubs have drawn 168,498, an average of 12,035. They'd need to draw almost 13,400 -- physically impossible -- to break the record average of 12,125 set in 2004. So that won't happen, but they're expecting another sellout today.

Both teams have announced that "minor leaguers" will do most of the pitching today, but who knows exactly what that means. It would normally be Ted Lilly's turn, but he's being held back till tomorrow to keep him on a "normal" four days' rest for his first regular season start next Wednesday. (I think, just as Lou didn't want Z to face the Brewers earlier in the spring, he probably didn't want Lilly to face them twice in six days, either.) The Brewers don't have an announced starter, either.

Today's game is on WGN-TV, and on MLB.com radio and MLB.TV via the MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday (2007 version)

MLB.com Gameday (2008 version)