MESA, Arizona -- The grass was a little browner than I remembered it from last March, scorched by the summer Arizona sun.

But parking's free, and it costs only $6 to get in -- sit anywhere -- so why not? I headed over to Ho Ho Kam Park Monday afternoon to take in the AFL game between the Mesa Solar Sox (comprised of prospects from the Cubs, Phillies, Braves, Marlins and Tigers) and the Peoria Javelinas (taking their players from the Mariners, Rays, Yankees, Brewers and Reds). A Javelina, apparently, is some sort of wild pig, as shown by their logo:

Personally, I like the Solar Sox logo (at left) better.

The PA guy (not Tim Sheridan, who does the Cubs' spring games, but someone else) laid a little joke on the small assemblage when announcing the attendance: at first he said "13,297", then adjusted it to 297 (and that must have included the 15 or so scouts, both teams and the employees behind the one concession stand that was open, and though the ticket price was cheap, the food was not: full major league prices for the limited selection). Those of us enjoying the above-average 78-degree game-time temperature and completely cloudless skies saw the Solar Sox beat the Javelinas 13-6 in a game that wasn't that close -- it was 13-0 Mesa at the end of the fifth inning, and then Mesa relievers gave up three homers and six runs over the last four innings. More on this later.

I'll talk more about the Cubs involved in this game in a moment, but the story of the game was Atlanta pitching prospect Tommy Hanson, a 22-year-old, 6-6 moose of a guy who throws bullets and has a nasty breaking ball; he threw five shutout innings, allowing one hit and two walks and striking out ten. It's no wonder that the Padres spent a good portion of the last couple of weeks trying to pry him away from the Braves in the Jake Peavy negotiations. Nor is it surprising, given the talent I saw today, that the Braves said no way. Hanson, though he spent 2008 split between the Carolina League and the Southern League, might be ready for a shot at the Atlanta rotation in 2009.

The Solar Sox scored first; Matt Young, another Atlanta prospect, led off the game with a walk (there were 12 walks in all in the game, which made it drag at times); next up was the Cubs' Nate Spears. After faking a bunt, then taking a pitch:

Spears swung at the next pitch, and on this swing (the catcher is faking a throw to second as the runner had taken off):

... he smacked a two-run homer, his first in the AFL, down the right-field line. Spears later singled, struck out, walked and flied to left, going 2-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBI. Personally, I like Spears; he's hitting .338/.457/.500 and has split his time between SS and 2B almost equally during the AFL season. I am well aware cough Sam Fuld cough that AFL stats don't necessarily translate into major league success. However, I think Spears at the very least will get a spring training invite and possibly as much as being added to the 40-man roster (after the Rule 5 draft) with a chance of making the major league team as a reserve infielder.

The Solar Sox added two more runs in the third off Peoria starter Alex Periard (from the Brewers; he was less than impressive, walking four and allowing eight hits and six runs in 3.2 innings). Steve Kahn (Mariners) came in and promptly gave up a single and a walk to load the bases, and another Atlanta prospect, third baseman Van Pope, hit a grand slam to the right-field berm (sorry, Ballhawk, the berm was officially closed, although that didn't stop a couple of people from trying to run after the six home run balls hit out there -- even though they had the sprinklers going in right field most of the afternoon).

The Cubs' other position prospect who played in Monday's game was Darwin Barney, a fourth-round pick out of Oregon State in 2007. This faked bunt attempt:

... eventually resulted in Barney grounding into a 5-4-3 double play (on a subsequent pitch). Barney grounded out three times, popped up and walked in his five times up (he hit ninth in this DH-used game).

Cub pitching prospects didn't do very well. Rocky Roquet, rather old for this league and his level (he turned 26 two weeks ago and has never pitched above Double-A), relieved Hanson and allowed three runs (two earned, thanks to a throwing error by Spears) when Yankee prospect Juan Miranda slammed a three-run homer. All three outs recorded by Roquet were on deep fly balls.

And Esmailin Caridad, who had one appearance for the major league Cubs in spring training in 2008, didn't distinguish himself, either; after retiring the first two hitters in the 8th inning on lazy popups, he issued a walk and then Miranda hit his second homer of the game. Caridad throws pretty hard for a guy his size, only 5-10, 195:

Finally, the hitting coach for the Solar Sox is someone you might recognize:

In the AFL many of the coaches and managers serve as base coaches; Peoria's manager Daren Brown (who manages Seattle's Triple-A team at Tacoma) coached third, while former Cub Ozzie Timmons coached first. For Mesa, manager Rocket Wheeler didn't coach, which left first-base coaching duties for various players who weren't in the game, and third-base coaching for Ryno. I was sitting in the first row behind the Peoria dugout and overheard, toward the end of the game, and also toward the end of his conversation, one of the Peoria coaches, who I thought I recognized, telling either one of his players or one of the other coaches -- I couldn't tell which -- that Mesa's hitting coach was "Ryne Fucking Sandberg". (There was, apparently, a reason for this reference, but I didn't catch it.) Then I figured out who uttered that profanity... Peoria pitching coach Ted Power, onetime closer for the Reds who was, briefly, in spring training with the Cubs (and I believe, Sandberg's teammate), trying to hang on in March 1994.

Baseball. Love it. Glad to have seen a ballgame in mid-November. Can't wait for spring training!

In the midst of the seemingly hourly updates on a possible Jake Peavy trade (they're getting almost as tiresome as the discussion last year of the deal for Brian Roberts that never happened), I thought it would be useful to post a list of some of Jim Hendry's best deals since he became general manager in July 2002:

• December 4, 2002: sent Todd Hundley and Chad Hermansen to the Dodgers for Mark Grudzielanek and Eric Karros
• July 23, 2003: sent Jose Hernandez, Bobby Hill and Matt Bruback to the Pirates for Kenny Lofton and Aramis Ramirez
• November 25, 2003: sent Hee Seop Choi and Mike Nannini to the Marlins for Derrek Lee
• July 8, 2008: sent Eric Patterson, Sean Gallagher, Matt Murton and Josh Donaldson to the A's for Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin

Now, answer this question honestly: how many of those deals did we hear a single peep about before they happened?

The correct answer is "None", because they all seemingly happened out of nowhere, unexpected either for the player acquired (did anyone really think D-Lee was coming here? He was rumored to be headed to the Orioles, among others), or for the idea that they'd happen at all (how many of us thought Todd Hundley's deal was dumpable?). My point is this: it seems the more we hear about a potential Cub trade, the less likely it is to happen. And I suspect that's what is going on with the Peavy rumors: all smoke, no fire. Peavy will either become a Brave, or go to some other team that hasn't even meen mentioned, but not become a Cub. I believe Jim Hendry is working hard on potential deals, but this isn't one of them. (Granted, that a couple of the deals mentioned above were salary dumps, but Hendry still had to become aware of them and offer the right players, otherwise they might have gone elsewhere.)

Just before the Hendry era, remember the Fred McGriff deal? That one dragged out for three weeks before McGriff decided -- magnanimous soul that he was -- to drag himself away from his family in Tampa to help the Cubs' push to the NL Central title in 2001, which ultimately failed. McGriff's numbers were decent in Chicago, but his attitude sucked. Fortunately, the Cubs gave up very little for him (infielder Jason Smith, who has played for five teams since leaving the Cubs and has a .221 lifetime BA to show for it).

So be a little patient, at least. The open free agent season doesn't start till Friday. I have faith in Jim Hendry -- who has made many excellent moves in the last two years -- to put the right pieces on the field for 2009.

A couple of things that flew under the radar yesterday:

• Geovany Soto says Henry Blanco will be back:

  Soto said he talked to Blanco recently and expects the free agent backup to return to the Cubs, who declined their $3 million option on him in hopes of re-signing him for less. "He wants 100 percent to come back and doesn't want to go nowhere [else]," Soto said.

• Guess who's interested in Bob Howry? The Giants, who have made a cottage industry out of signing the oldest players they can possibly find. The only criticism Brian Sabean probably has about Howry is that, at 35, he's not old enough for the geriatric Giants.

Sorry, I've run out of Jason Marquis puns! But between Marquis' outstanding performance (seven-plus innings, only one run scoring while he was in the game, two overall) and Alfonso Soriano's second three-homer game of his Cub career (joining Aramis Ramirez, Sammy Sosa, Dave Kingman, Ernie Banks and Hank Sauer as Cubs who have had more than one), the Cubs ended their six-game losing streak with a bang, slamming five homers -- including one by Marquis, his first of the year and fourth of his career and beating the Reds 14-9, scoring as many runs in one game as they had during the entire losing streak, and at last, passing last year's win total.

The football-like score was, as is often the case in the NFL, "not as close as it indicated". Some sloppy relief work by Jeff Samardzija (who hit a batter, allowed three hits and walked one), Michael Wuertz (who didn't retire any of the three batters he faced) and even Carlos Marmol (who let Jolbert Cabrera hit the first pitch he threw for a grand slam, before setting down the Reds in the 9th), made blowout appear close. Len & Bob were worried that Lou might have to get Kerry Wood up in the 9th in a game where the Cubs had led by nine and ten runs.

Actually, getting Wood some work last night might not have been a bad idea, as he hadn't thrown since last Tuesday (neither had Marmol). Regardless of what happens this afternoon, I suspect we'll see Wood in the 9th, as after today, the Cubs don't play again until Tuesday night in St. Louis.

It wasn't just home runs (including Mark DeRosa's 20th), either -- the 18-hit attack included doubles by Geovany Soto and Derrek Lee (who had four hits in all, celebrating his 33rd birthday in style). Soriano drove in five runs, giving him only one less than he had all of last year -- in 42 fewer games. When Alfonso starts hitting like this, he can carry a team for a couple of weeks at a time, as he did last September, or when he came off the DL both times this year, or last year when he hit the three homers in Atlanta (in the 31 games subsequent to that, including the 3-HR game, he hit .306/.340/.567 with 8 doubles and 9 homers). Like Sori or hate him; be frustrated or excited with his play; he drives the Cubs' offense, and if this starts another one of those streaks, good things are going to follow.

Marquis was outstanding last night, though he had brief control problems early; the only run credited to his record that scored while he was in the game was on a bases-loaded walk... that had to be one of the weirdest walks I've ever seen. Plate umpire Brian Runge, on a three-ball pitch to Chris Dickerson, stood there. And stood there, and stood there, until he finally held up four fingers, indicating Dickerson had walked. No one knew quite what to do, and Marquis got justifiably upset. Fortunately, Lou came out and defused the situation, but not before making Runge come out to the mound to meet him. Umpires need to make these calls more obvious, not to mention get them right -- that pitch was a nasty sinker that should have been strike three.

The missed call seemed to energize Marquis -- he shut the Reds down after it, retiring the next 10 hitters in a row until Brandon Phillips walked to start the 8th. After he retired Joey Votto on a fly ball, Lou came to get him, a job well done.

While the Brewers beat the Padres for the second day in a row, San Diego's pitching staff has held Milwaukee's high-octane offense down, allowing only six runs in the three games; give Jake Peavy credit last night, giving them only one run (which scored on a groundout), but SD's offense could do nothing off Ben Sheets -- who threw another CG, his fifth and Milwaukee's league-leading 11th. This may be significant later; no other team has more than five CG's, and Ned Yost may be running his pitchers into the ground just to get to the postseason. CC Sabathia has been great for them -- so far. But if Yost keeps sending him out there for nine innings every start, he'll wind up with over 240 innings for the year, just as he did last year. Check out his postseason numbers in 2007 for what overuse like that can do.

But that's for later. In the meantime, win today, win another series, and onward to St. Louis. The pregame thread will be up at 10:30 am CDT.

MILWAUKEE -- We had 'em outnumbered at Miller Park last night, or nearly so.

At least it felt as if there were more Cubs fans than Brewers fans last night during the Cubs' 7-2 win over Milwaukee, the team's fourth victory in a row, moving their division lead back to a more comfortable four games and matching the season high by getting to 20 games over .500.

The Cubs were on base seemingly everywhere, all night long. In fact, they could have scored far more than the seven runs they did; they had 23 baserunners (14 hits, 8 walks and Reed Johnson reaching on a dropped third strike); fifteen of them were left on base and Ryan Theriot was caught stealing, which accounts for the seven runs.

That caught stealing was just about the only thing Theriot did wrong last night. He made a couple of nice plays in the field and had three hits and three RBI, including what was probably the biggest Cub hit of the game, a triple into the right-center field gap that Corey Hart got a really bad read on that drove in two runs in the Cubs' three-run sixth, the inning that broke open what had been a pretty good pitchers' duel between Ryan Dempster and Manny Parra up to that point.

Dempster, as he has been in virtually all his starts this year, was outstanding, mixing up his pitches well and making really only one mistake -- throwing a wild pitch with Ray Durham on third base in the first inning, allowing the Brewers to score the only run they'd get until Prince Fielder homered off Neal Cotts for a consolation run in the 9th. Other than that, Dempster allowed only four other hits, and two of them were extra-base rockets by Parra, who isn't really known as a hitter (he was hitting .179 coming into last night's game).

If Dempster keeps this up he'll get some Cy Young consideration -- and no, I don't think that's hype. Only three pitchers -- Brandon Webb, Edinson Volquez and Aaron Cook -- have won more games; Dempster ranks sixth in ERA, eighth in strikeouts, and has the fifth-lowest WHIP of any NL pitcher currently qualified (with 108 innings or more). Of course, Carlos Zambrano is among the leaders in those categories as well and both Dempster and Z should get Cy Young votes. I wasn't one of those who thought the Dempster-back-to-starter experiment was going to work, but now, exactly two-thirds of the way through this so-far wonderful season, it has been an unqualified success, and is one of the reasons this team has played so well.

In addition to Johnson and Dempster, Alfonso Soriano was one of the "stars of the game" last night, with three hits and a stolen base; he appears to be running well, perhaps for the first time since that first injury with the Cubs on April 17 of last year. The forced rest for his legs for six weeks while his broken finger healed was apparently a very good thing; Soriano stole third base last night (foolishly, I thought at the time, as ball four was being delivered to Derrek Lee, but he made it) and seemed to be running the bases much better the other four times he was on, five times on base in all via three hits and two walks; the Cubs drew eight walks and forced five Brewer pitchers to throw 190 pitches.

I ran into BCB reader hoppy91 in the Metavante Club, where I went to eat before the game. That's amazing -- naming rights sold off for a team's club eating area -- up to this year it was called the ".300 Club"; there are tons of ads all over Miller Park. I counted, in addition to the ribbon board and other "moving" ads, thirty different fixed ads in the outfield. Anyway, hoppy99 is in Milwaukee for this series from Manitoba, Canada, and made it on ESPN's telecast wearing the BCB shirt. Also had a talk with BCB reader Shanghai Badger, who stopped by my seat in section 225 before last night's game.

As noted above, the crowd seemed to be more than half Cubs fans; maybe that was because I was looking for them or maybe because Brewer fans had little to cheer about last night; starting after the 7th inning, the place started to empty out and after the Cubs' two-run 9th that put the game away, virtually everyone left was wearing Cubs blue. Loud cheers erupted on the ramps exiting the park; I doubt any of us could have imagined that the first three games of this series would go so well.

Only one discordant note -- Kerry Wood was going to throw a simulated game yesterday, but didn't and is not "close" to returning. And if you read Lou Piniella's typically cryptic quotes in that link, you'll be even more confused:

"Initially, they had talked about a simulated game, bringing a few hitters here, and let him get some work in with a pad on his finger," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "That didn't happen, because he's really not close to coming back, so why risk it?"

Not close?

"When I say 'not close,' it's not imminently close," Piniella said.

Fortunately, the rest of the bullpen has picked up the slack; Chad Gaudin, who threw another scoreless inning last night, has been excellent and can step right in to an 8th inning setup role, which is where he pitched last night. Both Jeff Samardzija and Carlos Marmol got last night off and so are available today.

Rich Harden, who has pitched extremely well in his three starts as a Cub without a victory to his own credit yet, goes today. He has struck out ten in each of the three games -- 30 in all in 17.1 innings, with only eight hits and eight walks allowed for an ERA of 1.04 and a WHIP of 0.92. Some SABR research has found that only one pitcher -- Jake Peavy from April 25-May 11, 2007 -- has struck out ten or more in four straight starts in the last four years (both Randy Johnson and Johan Santana did this in 2004). But more importantly, let's get Harden a win. The pregame thread will be up at 11:30 CT.

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