In what appears at first glance to be sheer madness, the Cubs have decided to have Jon Leicester start Monday vs. the New York Mets aka the team that initiated the Cubs' tailspin in September of last year. This year's Mets team is much improved from last year so much so that after a 0-5 start, they have gone 17-10 since then and are not a team to be trifled with. Aaron Heilman 3-2, 4.19 ERA, who pitched a complete game against Florida earlier this year, will start for the Mets vs. Leicester.

Leicester, you may recall, was literally lights out for much of 2004 for the Cubs before eventually coming back to Earth, posting a decent 5-1 W-L record with a 3.89 ERA in 41 2/3rds Innings. This was an especially impressive performance given that his average ERA over 5 years in the minors was 4.54 and the fact that in his final year at the University of Memphis in 2000, he posted a horrendous 0-11 record with a 6.78 ERA.

However, toil under the clueless regime of Dusty Baker and his much overrrated Pitching Coach Larry Rothschild has taken its toll on Leicester. Even though he is to start, he has pitched only 6 innings this season. Is his arm really stretched out enough to handle pitching for a quality start? Given the fact that his longest pitching term this year was 2 1/3rd innings vs. Milwaukee in which he threw 53 pitches of which only 24 were for strikes, it hardly seems like he's really up for the challenge. Thus far this year, he has walked 8 batters while only striking out 4.

One wonders just why Leicester is being fed to the lions. Do the Cubs think Leicester can rise to the challenge? Or have they given up on him and are trying to mark time until Borowski returns? One would think that the Cubs would try to build up Leicester's confidence by having him pitch garbage innings.

When you get right down to it, what this decision really shows is the sad, decreipt state in which the Cubs pitching staff, which was so widely ballyhooed just 2 years ago, have fallen into. Needless to say, Chicago White Sox fans are going to have a hard decision to make on Monday night on whether or not to watch their 24-7 team take on the ever-horrible Tampa Bay Devil Rays or tune into WCIU-TV to watch the Mets steamroller both Leicester and the increasingly pathetic Cubs offense. In any event, there should be lots of fun and frivolity on the South Side of Chicago on Monday night.