Bruiser Chong

He wouldn't have had a play were it not the World's Slowest Man (Sean Casey) running down there. Nasty collision, though. Why'd Miguel Cabrera leave the game?

He barely has over 60 strikeouts in almost 180 innings and an ERA of almost 4. No freaking way. Wins are the most important thing for a team in the end, but wins are the only reason why Wang would even be considered for the Cy Young and that should have more to do with the Yankees' offense.

Cubs got swept by the Pirates, with Dempster blowing an extra-innings save chance for the second straight night. They're only a game and a half up on the Pirates now. They can do it!

Damn, Astros extend Oswalt to the tune of $73 million over the next five years.

Figures a game in which Zambrano was dominating when I left finishes in the 11th with Ryan Dempster walking in the winning run. I see Fast Freddie Bynum made a crucial error that tied the game up and also struck out three times batting second. At this point, let's go for the gusto and shoot for the cellar. Just two games now.

You just can't sink much lower than letting Gary Bennett beat you, other than letting him beat you in two consecutive games.

I'm not sure if he really just believes the guys he's playing are better than the ones he's benching or if he's subconciously not giving white players a fair shake. Let's look at the Theriot/Bynum platoon, which has become a "start Theriot every fifth game" situation or his insistence on beching Murton through various hot streaks. The likely answer is he just values the wrong things in players, like speed (Bynum) or in other cases, vets. Looks like the Cubs are about to blow it here.

Taking out Barrett in the 7th in a 6-6 game? All right, then.

This game's just setting up for another heartbreaking loss for the Cubs, if you can even have such a loss at 20 games under .500.

Did something new happen, Mik? I'd love to see Girardi get hired as the Cubs' manager, but I can envision Hendry re-signing Baker or someone almost as inept.

These networks sure are playing up the race thing with Dusty. You can't fire a black manager, because that will make you a fucking racist. A fucking racist.

Ronny Cedeno's absolutely worthless.

I thought one of the positives of Jacque Jones was supposed to be his defense. Is that incorrect, or did he just wait to start playing the outfield like a little leaguer once he joined the Cubs?

Hawk Harrelson thinks the Twins are beating the White Sox because of intensity and they "want it more." Uh huh.

Good god.

Albert Pujols isn't in the American League.

Facing Jaret Wright and Corey Lidle surely helped.

I didn't understand lifting Hill, but replacing him with Howry made even less sense. You bring in one of your best closers to face the 8, 9 and 1 hitters. Then you bring in one of your worst relievers in the ninth to face the middle of the order. For all the blah, blah, blahing the FOX announcers did today about why Dusty shouldn't be fired; this was a perfect example of why he shouldn't be brought back.

For anyone watching Cubs/Cards: have they talked about anything OTHER than why Dusty shouldn't be fired? I got home during the fifth and I think they've talked about the game here and there, but it's mostly been, you can't fire Dusty because ______.

Source? DX69304~!

Yanks fans bitch about their pitchers getting squeezed, but they may have a case with Dotel on that 2-2 pitch.

Looks like the tie in the NL Central will only last one day. Cards won and the Reds can't do anything against Matt Morris. They were down just one in the eighth. There were two outs and they intentionally walked the batter to get to Matt Morris. That put them at the corners and naturally, Morris doubled to score both of them. Morris should easily get the complete game. And while it was a good win for St. Louis, it wasn't exactly a pretty one. They left something in the neighborhood of 15 guys on base and their only two runs came from Cubs miscues (Jones catching the flyball flat-footed, assuming Bennet wouldn't tag and Ramirez' error that eventually scored). But with the kind of lineup the Cubs put out there tonight, two was plenty.

Pagan's in there.

And I suppose to respond to his own comments about the Cubs' lack of power, here's tonight's lineup: A day after complaining about the lack of homers the team hits, he breaks out his big sticks: - Pierre - Bynum - Ramirez - Jones - Barret - Mabry - Pagan - Cedeno - Mateo Just what a struggling Cards team needs to see.

More words of wisdom from Dusty Baker. I understand removing him won't solve all of the team's problems, but when you have a guy saying things like: “On-base percentage just to clog up the bases isn’t that great to me," he's a problem. He obviously thinks these teams that draw walks are just padding numbers; never mind they automatically raise their chances of scoring by doing so. But here's the one that just kills me: “I think the problem we have to address as much as anything is the home run problem,” Baker said. “They have out-homered us 2-1 in our own ballpark. That’s the bigger problem.” Oh.my.god. What has Dusty been promoting and forcing on Cubs fans the last two years? Speed, speed, speed! Of course your power numbers are going to blow has when you insist on filling the diamond with guys who are really fast, but not particularly good at baseball. And while I'll take power over speed, let us not forget the Cubs were among the homerun leaders in the NL in recent years, but still had offensive woes. That's because they didn't have all of that high OBP "clogging" up the bases when those homers happened.