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No Time For Comedy

That has nothing to do with baseball, really -- it's the title of a play we saw last night, featuring Sharon Lawrence of NYPD Blue fame.

But the Cubs didn't fool around either last night. After Jerome Williams decided to duplicate his last start, the one in April against the Brewers where he gave up two solo homers to Carlos Lee, by giving up two solo homers to Bill Hall, the Cubs took advantage of a couple of Milwaukee errors and beat the Brewers 4-2 behind the strength of a pair of two-run homers, one from Derrek Lee (now leading the league in both HR and RBI again) and one from Aramis Ramirez.

After trying to figure out all the 21st-Century, high-tech ways of watching the game (no digital cable, limited computer access) the other night, I had one of those forehead-slapping moments.

Radio!

WGN Radio covers at least two-thirds of the country after dark. And the theater let out last night just in time for me to switch on the car radio and hear Neifi! make a nice play for the last out of the game.

Which brings me to another fact, which I can put in front of you in three numbers:

0 - 9 - 5

That's Enrique Wilson's batting average after starting and going 0-for-3 last night.

Hey Dusty! Can we now agree that your six-year-old son would be a better major league player than Wilson?

This isn't Yankee Stadium any more either -- you can't claim "familiarity" with the ballpark. This guy can't hit. And you had to replace him with Neifi! for defensive purposes in the ninth inning, right? So what use does he serve? Cheerleader? Does he pick up bats in the dugout? Does he go out for coffee for his teammates?

There have to be at least twenty shortstops either in the minor leagues somewhere, or on the waiver wire, who are better major league players than Enrique Wilson.

Jim Hendry: can we please release this guy???

OK, rant over.

Williams threw well, despite the four walks, and Ryan Dempster got his tenth straight save -- and yes, I put that in bold because it's been a while since a Cub closer has converted that many saves in a row.

This, of course, raises the question of who stays and who goes when Kerry Wood and Mark Prior return. Prior may return this Sunday. That would be Williams' next turn -- so the logical thing to do would be to send Williams back to Iowa. But how do you do that after a good start like last night's?

And neither Sergio Mitre nor Glendon Rusch has been that good in the bullpen -- so I wouldn't recommend that, although I'm glad the Cubs outrighted Cliff Bartosh to Iowa, and why did it take so long to do this??

Anyway, having too many good pitchers is a pretty good problem to have, isn't it?

Don't have too much more to say this morning, other than another request to all of you -- if anyone's going to Milwaukee tonight or tomorrow, please post a diary about your experience there!

Keep the faith.