TV listings for Cubs fans June 2007

Sources: Tivo listings, etc. Thanks Tivo!

Eastern time zone listed unless otherwise noted.
Check your local tv listings.

WGN 2007 Season Cubs Baseball
On-air Schedule
Central Time --(subject to change)

All games played in Chicago will be in high-definition in the Chicago area.
(Note to WGN and Comcast : please expand high def Cubs games to all of Illinois. Thanks!)

http://wgntv.trb.com/sports/baseball/cubs/wgntv-sports-cubs2007,0,1696245.htmlstory

Chicago Cubs television schedule, includes WGN, Comcast, Fox, ESPN, WCIU and Comcast Plus games.

Subject to change (as we all know.)
http://chicago.comcastsportsnet.com/team-cubs-sked-07.asp

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Comcast Sports Chicago - daily listings

No beer sales unless the Cubs have the lead.

Not sure what this would accomplish, but it could make the crowd response more interesting.

It seems like they've tried everything else to avoid giving their fans the full 9 innings at Wrigley.

The Daily Herald's Bruce Miles writes in today's paper that "there have been rumblings that Piniella is growing impatient with the roster given to him by Hendry." I'd be curious to know what Piniella wants.

The Cubs are currently 6th in the National League in runs scored, but there are certainly problems on offense. Three of the top four outfielders have slugging percentages below .400. Jacque Jones, Matt Murton, and Cliff Floyd have just four home runs between them. None of them have ever had slugging percentages that low over a full season, excepting Floyd's rookie year as a 21-year-old in 1994. Jones is hitting .245/.302/.335 as the starting centerfielder. Much more of that and the Cubs will be compelled to replace him with Felix Pie for good. The trouble is that Jones is signed through next season, and for $6.3M.

It's a good thing the Cubs didn't resign Juan Pierre. Baseball Prospectus's Marc Normandin discusses how bad Pierre has been at the plate this season:

Felix Pie went 4-for-4 in the Iowa Cubs' 7-2 win yesterday, the ICubs' third in a row. Pie hit his 4th triple and 3rd homer of the year. He is now hitting .406/.467/.604 for Iowa on the year.

Subtitled "Inside the Cubs' Quest for October," this is a disappointing book about a disappointing team.

George Castle has served as the Cubs beat reporter for The Times of Northwest Indiana. Entangled in Ivy is less an examination of the disappointment of the Andy MacPhail era as it a autobiography of Castle's coverage of the MacPhail era and his retrospective observations. Which is by no means a bad thing, in and of itself.

Unfortunately, there is little new in this book for longtime followers of the Cubs. Castle does provide a nice overview of the problems of the MacPhail era. He writes of MacPhail's philosophy of trying to be "competitive" rather than trying to win the World Series, the lack of position player development, the lack of hitters' patience at the plate, and a too-small front office team (the Cubs have an assistant general manager -- Randy Bush -- this year for the first time since the Cubs hired MacPhail). In the process, though, Castle puts blame on minor issues. He argues that Wrigley Field is too old to have necessary amenities for the players, and the last few pages of the book are devoted to the supposed perils of day games at Wrigley.

The Cubs have promoted RHP Jim Henderson and LHP Paul Schappert from AA Tennessee to AAA Iowa and Matt Avery from high-A Daytona to AA Tennessee. Avery, a 6'6" righthander, was the Cubs' 9th round draft pick in 2005. The Cubs converted him to a reliver last year, and he ended up serving as low-A Peoria's closer, posting a 2.15 ERA in 67 innings. This season, he had a 1.61 ERA in 22.1 innings for Daytona. Henderson is a 24-year-old 6'5" righthanded reliver in his first season in the Cubs organization. He had allowed just 2 runs in 24 innings for Tennessee, striking out 25 while walking 10. Schappert was Daytona's closer last year for part of the season. He also spent half the season in double-A. This year, he had a 6.23 ERA in 30.1 innings for Tennessee.

The Cubs need to decide what to do with Wade Miller. Though he gave up just 1 run in 5 innings in his latest rehab assignment for triple-A Iowa Saturday night, his fastball topped out at 81, reports the Chicago Tribune. The Des Moines Register reports that he was mostly throwing 78mph. There's also no room on the big league staff for Miller. This experiment, unfortunately, did not work out. The Cubs owe Miller $1.5M for this season.

Interesting, it is, that the St. Louis Cardinals -- 13th in the NL in ERA coming into Sunday -- are to the point of using failed a Chicago Cubs relief pitcher as a starting pitcher. They have sent down the 0-8 Anthony Reyes to AAA and are inserting Todd Wellemeyer, whom even the Kansas City Royals released earlier this season, into the starting rotation. Wellemeyer had a memorable debut with the Cubs, but it was all down hill from there. He has a career ERA 19% below league average in 185 innings, all out of the bullpen.

2-12 is the Cubs' record in 1-run games, after today's loss to the Dodgers in 11 innings. Today's culprit was a poor offense -- 7 hits and 1 run in those 11 innings, though it would not have looked so bad if Aramis Ramirez's 8th inning, bases loaded, pinch hit flyout had traveled just 10 more feet -- and a hanging 0-2 breaking ball from Scott Eyre. Fittingly, the final play was a bounced Carlos Marmol pitch that struck Juan Pierre in the leg with the bases loaded.

You can't blame Lou Piniella for bringing in the struggling Eyre for Michael Wuertz when the Dodgers used Andre Ethier to pinch-hit to lead off the bottom of the 8th inning.

Only a few weeks ago, George Steinbrenner fired his strength and conditioning coach due to concern over some of the Yankee pitchers were having hamstring injuries. So with that said who is holding Larry Rothschild accountable for the way "his" pitchers have been performing, specially the bullpen? You constantly hear that the pitching coach can not be on the mound pitching for the players. However, it's not working. I am curious to know what the records are for starting pitchers and bullpen since Larry Rothschild took over? How many months total have his pitchers been on the IR during his watch compared to the other MLB teams?

That's the Carlos Zambrano we know and love. His 62 Game Score today wasn't his best of the season -- his best was his 66 two starts ago against the Mets -- but this performance seemed even better. That's because his control was excellent. He struck out 8 for the first time this year while walking just one (the last batter he faced, on his 125th pitch of the day). The Dodgers rarely hit the ball hard off him all day, demonstrating the good movement on his pitches. Zambrano won this game with his pitching, not any particularly great defense.

Meanwhile, Ryan Theriot has received two days off in a row, after hitting just .229/.316/.286 in 80 plate appearances over his last 18 games.

Ted Lilly, Rich Hill, and soon . . . Sean Marshall, the guy (we soon forget) finished 2nd on the team in 2006 in starts. "Sean Marshall will be called up to the Cubs this week, although when and where he'll start remains top secret," reports the Chicago Tribune. Marshall has a 1.82 ERA for AAA Iowa in 4 starts so far this season.

http://tinyurl.com/2z6y8v

Phil Rogers suggests in today's Tribune that Carlos Zambrano may be expendable. I don't usually dwell to much on anything Rogers has to say. I think he is off base more than he is on it, but even the blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while, and I have to admit that I have been thinking the same thing about Zambrano for a few weeks now. It's a fact that for the third straight season Big-Z's BB, HR and ERA are heading in the wrong direction. It's also a fact that Zambrano has come up MIA in some of the biggest Cubs' games since 2003. Rogers is right. Losing Zambrano would not exactly be like losing Maddux.

Last year I said that Neil Cotts was going to bring a lot of value to the Cubbies, and that the trade that sent David Aardsma to the White Sox in return was not a bad deal. As of now, having witnessed yesterday's two pitch debacle by Cotts, in which he gave up a bases loaded home-run to A.J. Pierzynski, I eat my words. (Aardsma of course is doing great for the South Siders.)

I wondered about Lou Piniella's judgment when Cotts was called in to relieve Zambrano, given that this was a high tension moment and Cotts might not relish it. Then when I realized he was facing A.J., the one guy on the White Sox who probably understands his pitching better than anyone, I got really scared.