With the news that Jim Hendry has told Dusty Baker that he will be the manager for the rest of the season, I'd like to offer some praise of Baker. But first, I'll say that Hendry made the right decision here, at least now that we have reached this point of the season. Baker is not causing any particular harm (more on that below), and the Titanic would not have been saved had the captain been replaced after the ship hit the iceberg.

Now, the praise.

Baker was accused at the time, and has continued to be accused now -- rightly so -- of riding too hard his pitching triumvirate in 2003: Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, and Carlos Zambrano. The Daily Herald's Bruce Miles provided a useful summary a couple of weeks ago. Zambrano has survived. Wood and Prior have never been the same.

But this year, despite having to rely on young starters perhaps more than he ever has, Baker has protected them admirably. Sean Marshall, Carlos Marmol, Angel Guzman, Rich Hill, and Jae-kuk Ryu have combined for 37 starts this season. The highest pitch count among those 37 starts was 115 by Marmol in the Cubs' win over the Houston Astros on July 18. In no other game has one of the young starters reached 107 pitches. Marmol has thrown 100 pitches in just 4 of his 8 starts. Marshall has thrown 100 pitches in just 3 of his 19 starts.

A large part of Baker's restraint is undoubtedly due to his greater trust in his bullpen -- particularly Bobby Howry, Scott Eyre, and even -- it seems -- Roberto Novoa and Glendon Rusch, than his young starters. A look at Zambrano's game log lends support to that theory. Zambrano has thrown at least 120 pitches in 6 of his 22 starts this year. He is second in the majors in Baseball Prospectus's pitcher abuse points. On the other hand, Zambrano's high this year is 126 pitches, which he has done twice. Prior had six starts in 2003 with more than 126 pitches. Wood had three, including a 141-pitch outing.

Unfortunately, many of the starts by the young starters have ended up like Rich Hill's start in tonight's game, where the pitcher just didn't perform well enough for Baker to leave him in long enough to rack up a large number of pitches. (Hill is a mystery: utterly dominant in AAA, utterly incapable -- so far -- in the major leagues. I hope that the Cubs will continue to pitch him the rest of the season despite tonight's bad start, again. They have nothing to lose, and there just can't be this large a gap between Hill's ability against AAA hitters and his ability against major league hitters.) Only Marshall and Marmol among the young starters have ERAs under 5, and neither of them are anywhere near locks for quality starts.

Whatever the reason -- by a change in mindset, by force, or because he just doesn't trust 'em -- Baker has protected the young starters this year. If he had not, his firing would be a necessity.