This is the one you've all been waiting for -- the thoughts I have about what sort of 25-man roster, including position players, pitching rotation and bullpen I think the Cubs should put on the field in 2009. I'm also going to make a comment or two on the coaching staff, which by and large did a fine job in 2008 (well, at least until October 1, they did). This is a long post, so I'm going to make you click through to read the rest, rather than show about 3,500 words on the front page. (You're about to find out why this took me so long!)

Continue reading this post »

Here's the very first thing I want all of you to remember this morning, as fans: do NOT give in to the temptation to think, "Here we go again!"

There are two things that truly bothered me about the Cubs' truly awful 7-2 loss to the Dodgers last night.

First, it didn't feel like a playoff game -- not in the least. There wasn't the usual electricity you feel in the stands even before the game. Now, maybe you could chalk this up to the odd starting time, but that's not really an excuse; the park was filled at the first pitch, but there seemed no excitement, no buzz, no anticipation, no sense that this wasn't just another game on, say, May 1 instead of October 1. Even after Mark DeRosa's windblown homer that gave the Cubs a 2-0 lead, there wasn't the hiked-up level of excitement you'd expect. The scoreboard operators must have figured it was a regular-season game, too, because they kept adjusting everyone's batting average each at-bat as if their previous AB in the game had been just another regular-season AB. There also wasn't any real buzz on the street, although the city set up barricades on Waveland and Sheffield, expecting people to be sitting outside -- there weren't many more than the usual crowd on Waveland during the game. One guy spent several innings writing "GO CUBS GO" in huge letters in chalk on the street, but that was about it for anything unusual.

Second, this one's on Lou. Seriously -- if you have two pitchers (Sean Marshall and Jason Marquis) who are starters or pitchers used to going extended periods, on the roster for the specific purpose of using them in long relief, why wouldn't you use them that way on a night when it was clear that your starter had absolutely no command? This is something Lou did all year during the time when he had Jon Lieber in the bullpen -- refusing to use Lieber in the very long-relief situations that he was specifically on the roster to fill.

Ryan Dempster, who is a standup guy (and ditch the full beard, Ryan -- it looks awful), would probably be the first to tell you that he sucked last night. Part of the problem was home plate umpire Dale Scott's bizarre strike zone -- pitches that appeared right down the middle were called balls, while breaking stuff in the dirt got called as strikes -- which might have made Dempster try to adjust, getting him out of his normal rhythm and as the night went on, generating more and more pitches out of the zone (57 balls out of 109 pitches).

But Lou stuck with him. And as it turned out, probably two batters too long. After Dempster walked Manny Ramirez, his fifth free pass of the game, even though the Cubs still had a 2-0 lead at the time, Lou should have yanked him, especially with the lefthanded hitting Andre Ethier and James Loney coming up next. Marshall was ready to go and there were two out; we figured maybe Lou had fallen asleep in the cold. Even giving Lou the benefit of the doubt because of his decades of experience, once Ethier walked, loading the bases, Marshall should have been in there.

So this one's on you, Lou. You've done great things for this franchise -- but not last night. It didn't help that Marshall, Jeff Samardzija and Marquis all allowed single runs in their relief work; this turned a possibly workable 4-2 deficit into a 7-2 blowout, the exclamation point of which was Greg Maddux' appearance in the 9th inning. Maddux, the only Dodger who got cheers on pregame introduction (loud boos were reserved for LA's other ex-Cubs, Nomar Garciaparra and Juan Pierre), received only tepid applause when introduced to begin the 9th, possibly the last time Cub fans will see him pitch in Wrigley Field.

The other culprits are the highly-paid Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez, who vanished in last year's division series and who went a combined 1-for-9 last night. Frankly, I was surprised any balls went out of the yard last night with the wind blowing in the way it was; DeRosa's blast was actually blown out because the wind was sort of blowing across from center to right field; the other homers cut through the teeth of the wind, including Manny's... and that one's on Lou, too, because none of us could believe he left Marshall in to pitch to Manny, among the biggest mismatches I've ever seen in a playoff game. Incidentally, perhaps only funny moment last night was provided by Manny; he threw the warmup ball into the LF bleachers just below us going into the bottom of the 9th. It was promptly flung back on the field; Manny ducked (the ball wasn't really that close to him). If you're going to the game and thinking about doing this -- don't. The thrower was promptly ejected, because throwing anything but a HR ball back isn't allowed.

So. What have the Cubs lost here? Not the series -- there's still time, although it's at a premium in a short series. The Dodgers swiped home-field advantage, essentially; the Cubs can steal it back by winning the next two games. I note that the best team in baseball, the Angels, also lost their first game at home to the Red Sox. Carlos Zambrano -- you've got to be on your game tonight. No histrionics, no stomping around, no bat-breaking, just your best stuff, like you had on September 14 in Milwaukee.

Finally, a word about the game threads. I have heard from a few people telling me how nasty it got in there. I do understand frustration and wanting to "get it out". All I ask is that you keep the profanity down and most importantly, don't attack others.

This isn't 2003 or 2007 or any of the other years where the Cubs failed. Remember what all of us have been saying, almost all year? This feels different; this team is different. They've come back from crushing defeats before. There is a lot of baseball still to be played by the Chicago Cubs in 2008. Onward, because the best IS yet to come.

There have been, since the World Series began in 1903, 103 major league postseasons -- no, I haven't miscounted; there was no World Series in 1904, nor a postseason in 1994.

The Cubs and Dodgers, historic franchises, have participated in 35 of those between them. Between them they've been in 26 World Series (ten for the Cubs, 16 for the Dodgers; only the Cardinals, with 13, and the Dodgers, have won more NL pennants than the Cubs since 1900) and nine other postseasons in the divisional play era without making it to the Series (five for the Cubs, four for the Dodgers). But tomorrow marks the first time in the long history of both these teams that they will meet in a postseason game.

I thought, rather than do position by position matchups, which rarely mean anything (seriously: catchers don't do battle with each other on the field), I'd take a look back at the seven games these two teams played against each other during the regular season -- with the caveat that the Dodgers are a very different team now than they were then, having added Manny Ramirez and Casey Blake to their offense. The Cubs won the season series 5-2 by sweeping the Dodgers at home and splitting four games in Los Angeles.

May 26 at Wrigley Field -- Cubs 3, Dodgers 1:

Ryan Dempster [had his] 11th good start of the season. Yes, all 11 -- look at his previous game log and you'll see that although he had a couple of "not-great" starts, he hasn't been blown out of any of them, and has gone six or more innings in 10 of 11. Today, after getting out of a first-inning jam he caused himself by walking the nearly-unwalkable Juan Pierre by a nicely-executed rundown of Pierre trying to score (my friend and BCB reader bison texted me from California, where he had scored it from home 1-6-4-5-2-3-4), Dempster settled down and retired nine of the next ten hitters he faced, finally running into trouble in the fifth when Mark DeRosa couldn't handle an infield popup and had no play as Matt Kemp, who had doubled, scored LA's only run.

Dempster got himself out of another jam in the 6th, after he had loaded the bases with two singles and a walk to Kemp, and again in the 7th, when no one was warming up, a testament to how overworked the bullpen was in all the extra-inning games in Pittsburgh. Dempster threw 117 pitches, 71 for strikes, and Bob Howry had to do the same thing in the 8th. We couldn't figure out why Scott Eyre, warmed and ready, didn't come in to face two lefty hitters in James Loney and Delwyn Young. Lou explained during the news conference that he thought Howry was throwing better, and it appears he wanted to give Howry a confidence-builder.

That's a risky way to win games, but it worked. Howry struck out Loney and got Young to fly to Jim Edmonds (the ball, not too far away from Alfonso Soriano, had us yelling, "Let Edmonds take it!" (We were threatening to ask the Cubs to put those beeping sounds you hear from trucks backing up near the wall so Alfonso would know when he's getting close to it, either that or yellow crime-scene tape.)

Dempster, for his part, continued pitching well all year -- he only had one or two bad starts the entire season.

May 28 at Wrigley Field -- Cubs 3, Dodgers 1:

[Kosuke] Fukudome, who has been in an offensive funk, snapped out of it with the double, a single and a walk, and made a couple of sparkling defensive plays in right field. How anyone could consider hurting the defense by moving him to CF and putting a minor league first baseman in right, I simply cannot understand. It does appear, as I keep saying, that Jim Edmonds is done, done, D-O-N-E (have I said done?). He went 0-for-4 last night, got booed roundly the last two times, and his bat speed is probably about the same as Cubs hitting coach Gerald Perry's would be if Perry took the field now. Edmonds did make one nice catch going back on a fly ball to the warning track; his fielding is still decent and he catches everything he gets to. I still fail to see how this team is helped by his presence.

Last night's performance by Kerry Wood ought to quiet a similar chorus asking for him to be replaced at closer. He looked dominant and seems to be getting more comfortable in the role each time out. Meanwhile, Carlos Marmol had a shaky outing, loading the bases before getting out of the jam. I'd like to see him rest up some, as he's bordering on severe overwork.

Well, obviously, I was wrong about Edmonds that day in May -- he started hitting right after that and has been an exemplary presence on the field and in the clubhouse. His postseason experience -- he has more than anyone else on the club, even Alfonso Soriano -- will be invaluable in October.

May 29 at Wrigley Field -- Cubs 2, Dodgers 1:

Before a near-sellout of 39,945 on a night that was, by the end, starting to get cold, the Cubs provided 9th and 10th inning dramatics that had Wrigley Field rocking as I have never heard it for a regular season game this early in the year, and Alfonso Soriano shut up his critics (for a day, at least) by poking a single into left field, scoring Mike Fontenot with the winning run in an excruciatingly exciting 2-1 Cubs win over the Dodgers, completing the Cubs' fourth three-game sweep at home this season, moving their home record to a spectacular 22-8, pushing them 11 games over .500 for the first time since the last day of the ill-fated 2004 season...

Remind me again why the Cubs need another starting pitcher? They allowed an admittedly hurting LA "offense" three runs in this series, and the only one Carlos Zambrano allowed last night was on a bases-loaded walk after he had helped load the bases by hitting Matt Kemp. Z admitted in his postgame comments that he knew he didn't have his best stuff or command; he walked four, tying his season high, and had to get, essentially, five outs in that tense eighth inning because his defense deserted him (Mark DeRosa let a ball go off his glove which was ruled a hit, and Ryan Theriot made a throwing error, both of which could have been outs). Z threw an alarmingly high total of 130 pitches -- something we haven't seen since the Baker era. However, Lou said in his own postgame remarks that he'll keep Z on a short leash in his next start...

It was right after that when Z's shoulder started to bark at him and a little over two weeks later, he had to be taken out of a game at Tampa Bay and wound up on the DL. I think Z is fine now, but the staff will have to watch his pitch count closely. (Yet another reason Bob Howry shouldn't be on the playoff roster.)

Kerry Wood, who some here were ready to throw under the bus when he had a tough debut as closer on Opening Day, is now leading the National League in saves.

Once again, this team won with a different hero; last night it was Kosuke Fukudome, who hit his first MLB home run away from Wrigley Field and who drove in the winning run with e perfectly-placed single off his countryman Takashi Saito in the 9th inning.

The Cubs blew an early 4-0 lead when Jeff Kent homered twice, once off Ryan Dempster, once off Bob Howry, who nearly did a Ted Lilly slam-the-glove-down move, rare for him -- you almost never see Howry show emotion on the mound -- but this resilient team came back. Props to Neal Cotts for throwing a scoreless inning -- so far, since his recall, Cotts looks more like the setup man who had a 1.94 ERA for the 2005 champion White Sox, than the guy who got sent down seemingly never to return last year.

Kent won't be playing in this series (and we hope, neither will Howry), and it would be great if Fukudome could get out of his two-month offensive funk and contribute in this series.

June 6 at Dodger Stadium -- Dodgers 3, Cubs 0:

... they just got beat last night when they got shut down by a pretty good pitcher. That kind of stuff happens even to great teams (example: the 114-win 1998 Yankees got shut out five times, including by scores of 7-0, 9-0 and 11-0. This makes three for the 2008 Cubs). [Hiroki] Kuroda not only held the Cubs to four harmless singles, he also struck out eleven and didn't walk anyone.

I posted a long diatribe about Ryan Theriot's lack of range in that recap; obviously, we're long past the time when any change is going to be made (especially with Ronny Cedeno now with a balky shoulder because of the dumb dive he made into 1B in NY last week). Theriot's the SS, for good or bad, for the duration. We can only hope that Kuroda's more hittable in game three than he was that night in June.

Carlos Zambrano actually threw six good innings; unfortunately, his defense deserted him in the seventh, with Aramis Ramirez charged with one error and Kosuke Fukudome dropping a catchable fly ball (the latter would have ended the seventh inning with the score only 4-3 Dodgers). You simply can't give a major league team five outs in any inning and expect to win.

All of this was after the Cubs had fashioned leads of 2-0 and 3-2 against the tough Derek Lowe, and even though Z had given up a ton of hits, he had gotten out of every jam up to the point where Russell Martin homered to tie the game at 2. In fact, all three homers hit today -- Martin's, Alfonso Soriano's, and the killer three-run blast from Matt Kemp that put the game away -- didn't seem as if they were going to go out when they first left the bat. All seemed routine fly balls that wound up carrying; Dodger Stadium seems more conducive to that during the day than at night.

And those defensive lapses were the story of the game; otherwise Z and Lowe matched up pretty well, and once the game was out of hand, Neal Cotts threw an inning and a third without allowing anything else, saving the rest of the bullpen for tomorrow.

So -- the Cubs could have defeated Derek Lowe (who is 2-1, 3.25 in eight career starts vs. the Cubs) if they'd have played a more solid defensive game, and note that the Dodger homers were hit during a day game, when the ball carries better than at night; all the games in the division series are likely to be night games (the first three definitely are).

Apart from Geovany Soto's throwing error on Juan Pierre's first-inning steal, which allowed Pierre to go to third and score on an infield out, the Cubs were nearly flawless in front of the national audience. Jason Marquis -- see, I knew he had this kind of talent, as Mark DeRosa said:

"I think sometimes he becomes his own worst enemy," DeRosa said. "He sometimes doesn't realize how great his stuff is. When he's on, he's tough to hit. He has a good sinker, he had good command of his slider and his split. He's a good pitcher. He's been a good pitcher in this league."

Exactly. Marquis threw strikes last night and had terrific movement on his pitches. If he hadn't run into trouble in the 7th inning, Lou might have let him finish, as he had thrown only 89 pitches when he was removed, but taking him out in favor of Carlos Marmol was the right thing to do.

Marquis probably won't pitch -- much -- in this series, but it's nice to know that he has this terrific outing, one of his best of the year, to think about if he winds up going against the Dodgers. LA, in fact, is one of his favorite opponents; in 9 career appearances against them (8 starts) he's 3-1, 1.99 in 54.1 innings.

So there you have it. For the Dodger fan's point of view please check out our SBN Dodgers site True Blue LA, and I also wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Rob McMillin's site that covers both the Dodgers and Angels, 6-4-2. (And Rob's wife Helen is a Cubs fan and occasional BCB poster.) In case you haven't already looked up my 2008 preseason predictions, there's the link; usually it's pretty embarrassing, but only half so this year. I nailed the NL playoff teams, all four of them. (Not so much for the AL, but at least I'm in good company; hardly anyone would have picked the Rays, White Sox or Twins back in March). I'll stand by my NL predictions for the postseason, too: the Cubs to win this series 3-1, and the Brewers over the Phillies, setting up what ought to be a terrific NLCS.

That was great theater, wasn't it?

Before a near-sellout of 39,945 on a night that was, by the end, starting to get cold, the Cubs provided 9th and 10th inning dramatics that had Wrigley Field rocking as I have never heard it for a regular season game this early in the year, and Alfonso Soriano shut up his critics (for a day, at least) by poking a single into left field, scoring Mike Fontenot with the winning run in an excruciatingly exciting 2-1 Cubs win over the Dodgers, completing the Cubs' fourth three-game sweep at home this season, moving their home record to a spectacular 22-8, pushing them 11 games over .500 for the first time since the last day of the ill-fated 2004 season, and... remarkably:

After 118 seasons of competition between the Cubs and the Dodgers, their all-time series is now dead-even: 1,010 wins for each team. I thought about this and these two franchises have traded periods of dominance. When the Cubs were a great team in the early years of the 20th Century, the Dodgers were horrid. When the Dodgers were winning ten pennants in the 20 years from 1947-66, the Cubs were awful.

But now: 2,020 games split down the middle. History is turning around.

Remind me again why the Cubs need another starting pitcher? They allowed an admittedly hurting LA "offense" three runs in this series, and the only one Carlos Zambrano allowed last night was on a bases-loaded walk after he had helped load the bases by hitting Matt Kemp. Z admitted in his postgame comments that he knew he didn't have his best stuff or command; he walked four, tying his season high, and had to get, essentially, five outs in that tense eighth inning because his defense deserted him (Mark DeRosa let a ball go off his glove which was ruled a hit, and Ryan Theriot made a throwing error, both of which could have been outs). Z threw an alarmingly high total of 130 pitches -- something we haven't seen since the Baker era. However, Lou said in his own postgame remarks that he'll keep Z on a short leash in his next start and also, he left Z in to finish the 8th partly because of the fans:

"I let the fans make that decision," he said of the applause that resulted when he left Zambrano in. "I told [Dodger third base coach] Larry Bowa 'I know how to make decisions to please the fans.'"

He was kidding. I think.

Anyway, other than the one inning where the Dodgers scored, Z was pretty solid, as were Derek Lowe and Jonathan Broxton, who kept the Cubs off the board through eight. The Cubs hit Lowe pretty hard, but everything was right at people. Broxton was throwing gas; he struck out Reed Johnson, a totally overmatched Micah Hoffpauir, and Alfonso Soriano. And usually, when Takashi Saito enters, that's it. But Saito was off last night, and thank the newly-patient Cubs for drawing two walks, Ryan Theriot and Aramis Ramirez, sandwiched around a Derrek Lee flyout. That's only the fourth time in 156 career appearances that Saito has walked two batters in one inning.

Big credit to Kosuke Fukudome for his hustle in beating out an infield grounder to load the bases; Geovany Soto tied the game with a sac fly, and then the Cubs bullpen held on -- Bob Howry, who's getting better, it seems, with each game he throws, pitched an uneventful 10th, setting up the last of the 10th (with half the crowd having left after the 9th, but those of us who remained were just as loud as those you heard at home in the bottom of the 9th).

Jim Edmonds was nowhere to be seen -- not starting against Lowe, nor pinch-hitting in the 10th; we're all happy with the Mike Fontenot double that started the winning rally, but just one day after Lou said this of Edmonds:

"Every time a right-hander has pitched, we've had him in the lineup," Piniella said of Edmonds, whom the Cubs acquired after he was released by San Diego on May 9.

Well, not last night against the RHP Lowe, he didn't start. Lou also said in that article:

"I don't have time limits," Piniella said about Edmonds. "The only problem I have here as a manager is I have a young man named Hoffpauir, and I want to see what he can do, so it creates a little bit of a situation for me as a manager.

"Outside of that, there's no timetable on anything," Piniella said. "[Hoffpauir] has had two good springs for us, and he's hit the ball well. We'd like to have a little clarification also."

As I wrote above, Hoffpauir looked totally lost against Jonathan Broxton. So where does this leave Edmonds? He'll sit tonight, obviously, against LHP Jeff Francis. After that... who knows?

We have seen this Cub team win by scoring buckets of runs; coming back from big deficits; and coming back now two days in a row from 1-0 deficits, late, with timely hitting and plate discipline. Yes, this is the Cubs I'm talking about. It feels diffent. It IS different. The Cubs have the best record in the major leagues this morning, tied once again with the Rays. Onward. And maybe the Cubs should invite ESPN more often. We're showing those East Coast guys that there's exciting baseball played outside of NYC and Boston.

Luis Maza hits into a DP in the first inning (Juan Pierre slides into 2nd)

Z's strikeout of Matt Kemp on a nasty backdoor slider in the 8th

Aramis Ramirez draws the Cubs' second walk of the 9th inning

Bob Howry strikes out James Loney to end the top of the 10th

Celebrate!

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

I had just turned the radio on to the postgame show to hear Lou Piniella discussing the merits of winning a lot of games at home and breaking even on the road, which is a nice little combination.

Wrigley Field is providing one of the best starts in club history at home -- 20 of the first 28, a .714 winning percentage which would result in a club-record-tying 58 home wins (set in 1910, a pennant year) if they could keep it up (most likely, of course, they can't)... and if they could just keep up the bargain on the road, this could be a special season.

Coming home off two disastrous losses in Pittsburgh, the Cubs once again clicked on all cylinders in defeating the Dodgers 3-1 this afternoon in front of a festive holiday crowd of 41,583, third largest of this young season, on a day which hinted of the nice summer weather to come -- a bit humid, in fact, somewhat uncomfortable since I didn't have time to change into the shorts I had brought from work, because parking was nearly impossible to find today.

Like you care, right?

What you do care about is Ryan Dempster's 11th good start of the season. Yes, all 11 -- look at his previous game log and you'll see that although he had a couple of "not-great" starts, he hasn't been blown out of any of them, and has gone six or more innings in 10 of 11. Today, after getting out of a first-inning jam he caused himself by walking the nearly-unwalkable Juan Pierre by a nicely-executed rundown of Pierre trying to score (my friend and BCB reader bison texted me from California, where he had scored it from home 1-6-4-5-2-3-4), Dempster settled down and retired nine of the next ten hitters he faced, finally running into trouble in the fifth when Mark DeRosa couldn't handle an infield popup and had no play as Matt Kemp, who had doubled, scored LA's only run.

Dempster got himself out of another jam in the 6th, after he had loaded the bases with two singles and a walk to Kemp, and again in the 7th, when no one was warming up, a testament to how overworked the bullpen was in all the extra-inning games in Pittsburgh. Dempster threw 117 pitches, 71 for strikes, and Bob Howry had to do the same thing in the 8th. We couldn't figure out why Scott Eyre, warmed and ready, didn't come in to face two lefty hitters in James Loney and Delwyn Young. Lou explained during the news conference that he thought Howry was throwing better, and it appears he wanted to give Howry a confidence-builder.

That's a risky way to win games, but it worked. Howry struck out Loney and got Young to fly to Jim Edmonds (the ball, not too far away from Alfonso Soriano, had us yelling, "Let Edmonds take it!" (We were threatening to ask the Cubs to put those beeping sounds you hear from trucks backing up near the wall so Alfonso would know when he's getting close to it, either that or yellow crime-scene tape.)

Did you ever think you'd be a Cub fan and be yelling that? Yeah, me either. Edmonds does, for all his flaws, still play a good CF -- his range isn't what it used to be, but he catches whatever he can get to. He also singled in trying to get a rally going in the 7th inning; 1-for-3 today, he has at least earned some more playing time. I, for one, am tired of all the Hoffpauir-whoever talk for the outfield; Lou seems obsessed with a LH power bat out there, and though I think Edmonds is done, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Derrek Lee provided the only runs the Cubs needed with his 12th HR after a walk to Ryan Theriot in the first. Aramis Ramirez hit his 9th in the 8th inning to give an insurance cushion to Kerry Wood, who very nearly hit Juan Pierre leading off the top of the 9th. I'm not sure what can be done about this, but really, that's the only thing stopping Wood from becoming an elite closer. If he can get past the yips of that first batter, he's fine. He gave up a seeing-eye single to Andre Ethier and then struck out Russell Martin and Chin-Lung Hu to end it (we all had to hold our tongues when Hu pinch-ran for Jeff Kent and all the "Hu's on first" jokes came to our collective minds in the LF corner). And for once it was the other guys stranding runners -- the Dodgers left twelve men on base today.

I don't have too much to say about Alfonso Soriano today... oh, never mind, yes I do. He handled two chances without incident, walked twice and hit a ball out to Waveland, just foul, which was caught by BCB reader ballhawk (that's your cue, Ken -- let's hear about that!).

One discordant note: remember how I've been saying Kosuke Fukudome never has a bad at-bat? He had at least three of them today, striking out twice and getting badly fooled and hitting into a 1-2-3 DP with the bases loaded and the Cubs with a chance to blow the game open in the 6th. The pitchers may be catching up to him. He has to start making adjustments. I think he's smart enough to do so -- but we'll see.

In any case, a game like this is how they should all go. Home cooking feels real good, and after 51 games, just short of 1/3 of the season, the Cubs still have not lost more than two games in a row.

Finally, former Cub pitcher Geremi Gonzalez was killed when hit by lightning yesterday in his home country of Venezuela. I remember Gonzalez well as a top pitching prospect in the mid-1990's -- he never panned out, but did have a nice 11-9, 4.25 season for a terrible Cub team in 1997, then hurt his arm and was never the same. He also played for Lou Piniella for two years at Tampa Bay and Lou remembered him fondly in some postgame remarks. For more discussion about this, see Galvan316's FanPost.