Bad outfield defense can kill a team, giving up more extra-base hits and allowing teams to take extra bases. Today's starting outfield of Eric Patterson, Jim Edmonds, and Daryle Ward made me wince when I saw the lineup. It was like the days of Glenallen Hill, Sammy Sosa, and Henry Rodriguez, only without the offensive ability.

Patterson had not played a game in leftfield in the minors this year, but has played left in 11 games now for the big league club. Today may have been his last for awhile. "We'll put somebody else out here in left field. … We'll make some changes, and go from there," said Lou Piniella after the game. Patterson misplayed a base hit for a two-base error today and has misplayed some fly balls in previous games. Additionally, the White Sox clearly had it in their game plan to send runners when the ball was in Patterson's hand, as anyone and everyone was taking extra bases against him today.

Other options while Alfonso Soriano and Reed Johnson remain on the disabled list: Matt Murton, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Theriot (with Ronny Cedeno playing shortstop), recalling Micah Hoffpauir. Return soon, Mr. Soriano.

Alfonso Soriano was hit in the left hand by a pitch in tonight's 7-2 win and broke a bone in that hand. He will be out, it appears, at least six weeks. Interesting that it happens on the same day the St. Louis Cardinals lose Albert Pujols to a calf injury for three weeks.

The Cubs will call up Micah Hoffpauir, who went 8-for-19 with 3 doubles in a brief stint in May. He was going to be called up when the Cubs go to Toronto this weekend, anyway. However, Hoffpauir has drawn just 1 walk in 65 plate appearances for Iowa this year.

Meanwhile, two players who thought they were major league players at the beginning of this year, continue on in Iowa. Felix Pie has hit just .171/.223/.333 for Iowa since his demotion in mid-May. And Matt Murton has hit .311 with a .411 OBA, but has just 1 home run in 50 games for Iowa. Newly signed, and old Cub, Jason Dubois already has 5 in 12 games. After Hoffpauir, the position player most likely to be recalled is Eric Patterson, who is hitting .326/.361/.514 for Iowa. Patterson is also 10-for-10 in stolen bases.

Lots of notes from the first day of camp, from the Chicago Sun-Times and MLB.com:

Jason Marquis, Jon Lieber, Ryan Dempster, and Sean Marshall are battling for the final two rotation spots, after Carlos Zambrano, Ted Lilly, and Rich Hill. One gets the impression that the best of the four--Marshall--is the least likely to get a job.

The Cubs won't take any action against Aramis Ramirez for being "dedicated entirely" to his cockfighting roosters when he is home in the Dominican Republic. "It's understanding and respecting what's acceptable in their culture,'' said Oneri Fleita, player development director and head of the Cubs' Latin American operations. ''We tend to think we have all the answers in our country, but there are people in other parts of the world that think their [customs] are better than ours.'' Moral relativism is alive and well in the Cubs front office.

"Piniella said former Notre Dame football star Jeff Samardzija, who pitched his first full season of professional ball last year, will get a longer look in camp this year and could be ready to make his major-league debut this summer if his progress remains on pace." Samardzija pitching for the big league club this summer would be a miracle.

Angel Guzman might be pitching off a mound by July. Guzman almost became the Cubs' closer last May before going down with an elbow injury and having Tommy John surgery.

This is a good sign: "Eric Patterson was one of the early position players in camp. He has spent most of his Minor League career as a second baseman but will get some playing time in the outfield." That's a good sign because the last we heard from Patterson was that he was being demoted to double-A from the big league club for showing up late to the park last September. (That demotion resulted in Sam Fuld's promotion, which resulted in this, and after this, has Fuld fighting for the starting centerfield job this spring.)

Kevin Hart didn't have a job this winter other than working out, so he learned to cook mashed potatoes.

This is interesting: "Rookie Eric Patterson was sent to Double-A Tennessee on Tuesday after arriving late to the ballpark, a violation the Cubs did not want to ignore because he had done the same thing at Triple-A Iowa," reports the Chicago Tribune. Who knew that the Cubs imposed punishment for wrongdoing?

Though no one needed to take his place, the Cubs called up left-handed hitting and throwing outfielder Sam Fuld. Fuld hit .290/.372/.388 for AA Tennessee in 90 games this year and .269/.397/.442 in 14 games for Iowa. He hit .300/.378/.422 for high-A Daytona last year. During Ron Santo's interview of Lou Piniella during tonight's WGN Radio pre-game show, it was obvious that neither Santo nor Piniella could remember Fuld's name as they talked about him.

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.

After today's 17-7 win, the Iowa Cubs are now 21-16 and in first place in the American North division of the Pacific Coast League. Two infielders are playing big parts in Iowa's success: second baseman Eric Patterson and third baseman (and 2B and SS) Mike Fontenot.

Patterson was 2-for-4 with 2 walks today and now has had a multi-hit game in seven straight games. For the year, he's hitting .339/.389/.517.

Baseball Prospectus's Nate Silver uses his PECOTA projection system to take a look at second base prospects. (Sub. req'd.) Cubs' prospect Eric Patterson comes out as one of just three players termed "excellent." He is number 2 overall, behind Boston's Dustin Pedroia and ahead of the Astros' Brooks Conrad. Silver writes:

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.

The Daily Herald's Bruce Miles reports that Lou Piniella said yesterday that Alfonso Soriano will not be playing center field in 2007, but will play one of the corner outfield spots. That means one of three things: the Cubs will either 1) sign a stopgap center fielder like Kenny Lofton; 2) move Jacque Jones to center field; or 3) let Felix Pie, Eric Patterson, and Angel Pagan fight it out in spring training. (On Patterson playing center, see View from the Bleachers.)

The Chicago Cubs have promoted second baseman Eric Patterson to triple-A Iowa. He made his debut last night, hitting a home run in his first at-bat. Nevertheless, as Chicago Cubs Minor League Baseball notes, Patterson's promotion "is a little surprising considering Patterson wasn't exactly lighting it up at AA West Tennessee with a line of 263/330/408." Patterson hit .333/.405/.535 for low-A Peoria last season. It's certainly possible that the Cubs are setting up a competition between Patterson and Ronny Cedeno for the starting second baseman job by sometime next season. Cedeno is just two months older than Patterson.

Jason Blasco as Top Prospect Alert has written a profile of Peoria Chiefs second baseman Eric Patterson. On Patterson's relationship with his older brother, Corey: "Our conversations aren't just baseball related. We are doing a lot of catching up. . . . It does help having that resource because he has been through everything I am going through now. You can hear stories all day, but you don’t really know what it is like until you experience everything yourself." . . . more