The Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan reports that the Cubs will call up left-hander Carmen Pignatiello and outfielder Jake Fox before tonight's game against the Reds. (Hat tip: Out of Right Field.) Presumably Eric Patterson and Sean Gallagher are leaving, which leaves us wondering why Patterson was brought up in the first place. He was with the club for seven games, started just one of them, and had just six plate appearances.

Jake Fox (0-for-1) has "won" the battle with Scott Moore (0-for-5) to remain following Derrek Lee's return from his suspension. The Cubs have recalled Ronny Cedeno, who has been killing the ball at Iowa since his demotion, while demoting Moore.

"The Chicago Cubs dealt Cesar Izturis to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday" along with cash for a player to be named later reports MLB.com. They also called up Jake Fox from AA Tennessee.

Izturis had lost his starting shortstop job to Ryan Theriot, as he has only started two games in July. He hit .246/.298/.304 for the Cubs this year in 207 plate appearances, after coming over from the Dodgers last year in the Greg Maddux trade. I noted then that "Izturis is a younger Neifi Perez." In 2006, he hit .233/.282/.260 for the Cubs in 79 plate appearances. Despite a defensive reputation, having won a Gold Glove in 2004, Baseball Prospectus rates him as just 2 runs above average at shortstop during his career.

Here's what the Chicago Tribune's Mike Downey had to say when the Cubs traded Maddux for Izturis last year:

The Cubs like Jake Fox's bat and he impressed this spring. His catcher's mitt, apparently, they're not so impressed with. So the talk of him playing some outfield this year is true. In fact, he was Tennessee's opening night left fielder. Perhaps concentrating on the new position affected him at the plate: hitting third in the lineup, he went 0-for-4 with 4 Ks. Sean Gallagher, throwing to Chris Robinson, threw 5.2 innings of no-run ball.

16 invited to Cubs spring training camp

Sean Gallagher, Ryan O'Malley, Jake Fox, Eric Patterson, Tyler Colvin, Randy Wells, Carmen Pignatiello, Adam Harben, Mike Kinkade, Casey McGehee, Chris Walker, Jason Anderson, Ben Howard, John Webb, Les Walrond and Koyie Hill.