FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal reports that Kaz Matsui is about to sign a three-year, $15M contract with the Houston Astros, even though the Cubs made him a similar offer. I understand that Matsui is a fine fielder (quite good, in fact, according to Baseball Prospectus' numbers), but a) he had just an 87 OPS+ last year; b) he has a 82 OPS+ for his career; c) he's 32; d) the most games he has played in a season in his four-year MLB career is 114; and e) the Cubs already carry second basemen like Tony LaRussa carries LOOGYs. As Wrigleyville says, the Astros are saving Jim Hendry here.

Meanwhile, a couple of the other division foes are signing Cubs' rejects to multi-million dollar contracts. The Brewers sign the catcher who lost his starting catcher on a playoff team to the guy just getting some filler time in September, for $4.25M no less. And the Cardinals may be smart, but they did just sign Cesar Izturis to be their starting shortstop.

Following last night's 10-hit, 10-walk, but only 4 runs performance, the Cubs are now 16-22 since moving to a season high 8 games above .500 on August 1. And yet they are still just one game behind the division leading Brewers. During that same time frame, the Los Angeles Dodgers have gone 17-20 and have gone from 1 game back in the NL West to 6 games back. Just another way of confirming the mediocrity of the NL Central.

A few other notes:

"We’ve scored, what, 5 runs in two ballgames?" says Lou Piniella. "That’s not going to win too many games."

The Cubs' power drought continues. Just one extra-base hit on Monday and just one extra-base hit on Tuesday, both doubles. Alfonso Soriano, Jacque Jones, Derrek Lee, Cliff Floyd, Matt Murton, and Michael Barrett are all still without home runs. The Cubs' .107 Isolated Power is 14th in the National League, ahead of just the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants, and well below the league average of .142. That'll change, but until it does, the Cubs are going to struggle to score runs.

Al Yellon says that the Cubs should cancel today's game due to the weather. Good idea.

As the Cubs get ready to face the Houston Astros today, the AP notes that the Astros' 1-5 start matches their worst since 1990. They finished 75-87 that year. Astro Asylum says:

Things the Astros are good at:  Starting Pitching

Things the Astros are not good at:  Relief PItching, Hitting, Defense, Managing and Base Running

"Outfielder Carlos Lee, one of the top free agents on the market, signed with the Houston Astros, a source close to the negotiations said Friday. Lee signed a six-year, $100 million deal with the Astros, the source told the Associated Press."

In my mind, the Cubs got the better deal. Alfonso Soriano is six months older, but has three seasons in which he has posted at least 10 WARP3. Lee's career high was 8.9, in 2004.

The Chicago Cubs are likely to seek to sign Carlos Zambrano to a contract extension during the offseason, to avoid him becoming a free agent after the 2007 season. For that reason, the Houston Astros' recent signing of Roy Oswalt to a 5-year, $73M extension has much relevance, not only for Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt, as The Sporting News' Mike Berardino notes, but also for Zambrano and the Cubs.

Here are Zambrano's and Oswalt's numbers from July 1, 2002 (when Zambrano entered the Cubs' rotation) through September 3, 2006:

I'm not sure this is what Jim Hendry envisioned when he was calling triple-A manager Mike Quade at midnight last night asking him who he could send to Houston real quick to start today's game. The answer was Ryan O'Malley. The Cubs' exciting 18-inning win last night (I stayed up, did you?) included the use of today's scheduled starter, Rich Hill, for the final two innings. Angel Guzman also threw three innings. In an attempt to avoid using Hill, Dusty Baker also used Ryan Dempster -- pitching for the third straight day -- for three innings. (Astros manager Phil Garner used poor Dave Borkowski (longest outing of the year: four innings) for six innnigs.)

Scott Eyre, who strained his right hamstring in last night's game, was placed on the 15-day DL to make room for O'Malley.