“This actually means something, and I can’t wait,” he said. “It’s been 10 months in the making, so I’m excited to get back out there.”

How did he make it through 10 months without playing baseball?

“It was tough, but I had my family and my wife and kids the whole time to help me through it,” Garza said. “It was a grind, mentally. Physically, I could do anything, but the mental part was the tough part. It was one setback after another, and it was, ‘Keep going, keep going, keep going.’ I’m just happy I’m here at the end of it and can’t wait ’til Tuesday.”

If nothing else, it will be great to see him on the top step pulling for the rest of the team. Garza will be on an 85-90 pitch limit, so I’m thinking we’ll get five or six innings out of him. What are the chances we’ll get to see him make a wild throw to first in that time?

Evil Cubs nemesis Wandy Rodriguez will take the mound for the Pirates tonight. He’s 4-2 on the year with a 3.25 ERA. Lineup after the jump.

Borbon CF
Castro SS
Rizzo 1B
Soriano LF
Hairston RF
Castillo C
Ransom 3B
Barney 2B
Garza P

A lefty starter means no David DeJesus at the top. So for tonight, we’ll be praying for Borbon to take the wheel. We know how that usually turns out.

So hey, Matt Garza returns today, and he’s eager, NOT NERVOUS:

Tell me this doesn’t look like Matt Garza. It totally does.

Garza may be talking down any tenseness about the start, but his manager, Dale Sveum, knows the challenges of returning to pitch on the game’s biggest stage. He’s worried — as he always is with players returning from injury — that Garza might try to do too much.

“You always worry about that with anybody, because I don’t care what you say, it’s different when 40,000 people are in the stands and you have third decks on the stadiums,” Sveum said. “But he’s been around long enough to understand how to control it if he’s starting to feel that, so you hope you’re able to control that in the first inning and get through that.”

Sveum plans to limit Garza to 85 to 90 pitches against the Pirates, who are 8-2 in their last 10 games and have only lost one game this season when leading after seven innings.

I have to admit, the thing I’m most looking forward to in Garza’s return is his penchant for yelling at Dale from the mound. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good manager-player fight, and I feel like our chances just got a lot better. Welcome back, Matt!

I know you’re all devastated to hear that his latest stint in the minors has Ian Stewart questioning the Chicago Cubs organization and his place in it:

DES MOINES, Iowa — It’s warm and sunny at Principal Park as the Iowa Cubs wrap up batting practice. Ian Stewart was getting a rare start at third base in place of Josh Vitters, who reinjured his left quad the day before.

But this is not where Stewart expected to be.

“It was very frustrating at first,” Stewart said, sitting in the home dugout, “because the way I looked at it from the beginning is I was coming here to treat it like Spring Training.

“I was focused on my timing, seeing pitches, getting at-bats and not the result, really,” he said. “That was the hardest part was that I was preparing myself mentally to get back to the big leagues, and it didn’t happen.”

No it did not.

“I’m over the not being in the big leagues part,” Stewart said Friday. “Now I’m just trying to put some good games together.”

It won’t be easy. When the Cubs made the roster move, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein told Stewart that Vitters will get most of the at-bats. On Sunday, Brent Lillibridge started at third.

“I talked to Theo, and he was basically telling me that Vitters is the future at third for them,” Stewart said. “I understand that. … Josh is young and he’s a good player and has a lot of talent. That part did not surprise me at all.

“It was basically if I wanted to stay with the Cubs and accept my assignment here, they were letting me know I wasn’t going to play a lot here,” he said. “I don’t know if that was a way to get me to take my free agency, because there’s money involved in all of that.”

Stewart signed a one-year, $2 million contract last December after the Cubs non-tendered him. Did he consider leaving?

“I really didn’t,” Stewart said. “It’s tough, because when you’re put in that situation, you’re almost playing for the wrong reasons. … It wouldn’t really make sense for me to take a release or ask for free agency, because then I’d be giving up my contract, and that doesn’t make sense for me financially or for my family.”

This reminds me of George Costanza trying to get the Yankees to fire him. Ian should consider putting on Ernie Banks’ pants and dragging the 1908 World Series trophy (is there even a 1908 World Series trophy?) behind his car in the Des Moines parking lot.

The Cubs are at PNC Park tonight to kick off a series against the Pirates. First pitch is at 6:05 pm CT on CSN.

“As soon as it left the hand, I didn’t like it,” Wood said. “I was hoping he would pop it up or something. But he didn’t. He put a good swing on it, hit it out of the park to tie the ball game.”

Giving up three runs in seven innings is good. Unfortunately, the Cubs offense couldn’t manage more than three runs to make Travis Wood a winner. But he does have the consolation of being the first Cubs lefty to begin a season with nine straight quality starts since “Three-Finger” Brown in 1908. But Wood is just doing his job.

“I think that I’ve always had that (mindset) regardless of how things are going,” Wood said of his quality-start streak. “That’s gotta be the goal, that way you’re getting deep into ball games and helping your team win.”

The offense, which has been better with RISP lately, reverted to being bad in those situations Sunday.

“We left guys on third base, struck out twice with a guy on third base and less than two outs,” Sveum said. “So those kinds of things come back to haunt you.”

The approaches are lacking at times, too. The Cubs drew only 1 walk against Mets pitching. Starlin Castro, who went hitless in his final 11 at-bats of the series, grounded out in the third by swinging at a pitch low and outside after getting ahead 2-1 in the count.

“That’s what we got right now in Castro swinging the bat,” Sveum said. “He’s going to swing the bat. He’s only walked five times or something like that the whole season. So we know what we’re going to get.”

One other thing we know we’re going to get is the return of Matt Garza.

With Matt Garza coming off the disabled list Tuesday, look for the Cubs to designate reliever Michael Bowden for assignment. Bowden is 1-2 with a 3.78, and he has outpitched some others in the bullpen, but he’s caught in a roster squeeze.

Sorry, Michael Bowden. If you made more than Shawn Camp, it might be him in your place.

Edwin Jackson, who signed a four-year, $54 million contract with the Cubs last winter, continued to struggle at Wrigley Field on Friday despite turning in his longest performance of the season.

Jackson pitched into the seventh inning for the first time in 2013 before being lifted after allowing a go-ahead single to Mets starter and winner Matt Harvey as New York held on for a 3-2 win. Jackson is 1-6 in eight starts in Wrigley with an ERA above 8.00.

So he had a quality start, his longest outing of the year and only gave up three runs. I’m not sure how he continued to struggle, other than that the picked up the loss. And that could have been different, were it not for a bad decision by third base coach David Bell.

The Cubs had the potential tying run on second base with one out in the eighth inning when David DeJesus hit a line drive single to former Cubs outfielder Marlon Byrd in right.Darwin Barney hesitated a bit and then took off around third base with Bell’s blessings toward home plate. Byrd’s throw was a perfect strike to catcher John Buck, who tagged Barney out three feet from the plate.

”Obviously it is disappointing. It turned out it wasn’t a very close play,” Bell said. “I just watched the replay again and it wasn’t close. As a third base coach you always want to make the right decision. and that clearly wasn’t the right decision.”

As it turns out, Byrd, once again, was the wyrd.

The Cubs will try to even up the series with the Mets today. Jeremy Hefner starts for New York. He’s winless with a 4.61 ERA for the season. The Cubs counter with Scott Feldman, who’s been a delightful surprise at 3-3, 2.53, including a 1.77 ERA in his last three games.

Game time is 12:05 Central, and the game will be broadcast on CSN. No lineups as of press time, so if someone would kindly post in the comments, I’d be appreciative.

When he wore Cubs blue, Marlon Byrd would salute the Bleacher Bums at Wrigley Field. And for a while, they loved him. Fans arrived at games wearing “Byrd is the word” T-shirts, as they watched him patrol center field for more than two seasons and earn a trip to the 2010 All-Star Game.

But when Byrd was traded to the Red Sox last season after only 13 games, he was hitting .070 and had recorded only two RBIs. It didn’t get much better for Byrd in Boston. After just 34 games, he was suspended for 50 games for a positive drug test.

On Friday, Byrd will return to Wrigley Field for the first time since Chicago traded him last April. After a brief stint in the Mexican Pacific League during the offseason, the 35-year-old Byrd is hitting .271 with three homers and 16 RBIs in 96 plate appearances with the Mets this season.

When New York opens a three-game series in Chicago on Friday, Byrd will once again settle into his spot in front of the ivy.

So if anyone is feeling nostalgic for the Mike Quade year, today’s your chance to relive the glory days. By the way, I would KILL to be able to find our old “Marlon Byrd is Magic” pic. If anyone has a copy, let me know.

Before we get to today’s matchup, you’ll all be interested to know that Matt Garza looked pretty good in his final rehab start yesterday. How do we know it’s his last rehab start? Because Matt has decreed it to be so:

Matt Garza worked six shutout innings Thursday night for Triple-A Des Moines, allowing two hits, walking none and striking out six in a 1-0 win over Tucson. Barring the unexpected, he should make his 2013 Cubs debut next week.

“I don’t need another start down here,” Garza said, according to the Des Moines Register. “There’s no reason for me to stay in the minor leagues.”

Assuming Garza, who is recovering from a strained left lat muscle, comes back as scheduled, he’ll have a little more than two months to work before the July 31 trade deadline, when the Cubs must decide whether to deal him or hang on to him in the hope of signing him to an extension.

However, when Garza will next pitch remains to be seen. Jesse Rogers tweeted this morning that the Cubs have no set “plan” for when Garza will return, but are waiting to see how his next bullpen session goes.

Today the Cubs open a three-game series with the Mets at Wrigley, and we’ll get the chance to see which Edwin Jackson (0-5,  6.02) will show up: the one who went 0-5 or the one who somehow managed to beat Stephen Strasburg?  EJax’s opponent today will be 24-year old wunderkid Matt Harvey (4-0, 1.44). So this should end well.

First pitch today is at 1:20 pm CT on WGN tv.

Don’t forget that Wrigley Talk Friday comes your way today at 3 pm CT on Blog Talk Radio. What topics do you want to hear Julie, Tim and Adam discuss?

I’ve often spoken of my complete and total disdain for the Milwaukee Brewers. I realize that, as a Cubs fan, I’m supposed to reserve most of my hate for the St. Louis Cardinals, with a small amount left over for the White Sox. And, after all, I grew up halfway in-between Chicago and Milwukee, and the Brewers were my AL team.

However, all that has changed since the Brewers moved to the NL Central. And while my hatred for the Cardinals is tinged with a begrudging respect that they always seem to be in the running when the post-season rolls around, I can’t say the same for the Brewers. For them, my hatred is only tinged with disgust. Accordingly, the above standings have brought me great joy.

The Cubs revealed more details about their renovation plans, releasing images of a 5th gate at Wrigley, which would open onto the West side of the park and the Cubs claim it would help alleviate congestion after the games. As someone who routinely gets stuck in the crush to leave Wrigley for at least 30 minutes at the end of every game, I’m fully on-board with this plan.

It sure does look purdy.

It’s time for all of us to resume Matt Garza Watch, 2013, as Garza is scheduled to make what could be his last rehab start today:

CHICAGO — Cubs pitcher Matt Garza will make his fourth Minor League rehab start on Thursday, pitching for Triple-A Iowa.

The Cubs hope the right-hander, on the disabled list because of a strained left lat suffered in a Spring Training workout Feb. 17, will be able to go deeper in the game and throw 85-95 pitches.

In his last outing for Double-A Tennessee on Saturday, Garza threw 66 pitches over 3 1/3 innings.

Let’s all hold hands, huddle together, and hope for the best.

Finally this morning, a lot of people emailed me and tweeted me last night about the Carlos Marmol kerfluffle, which took place after another Cubs blog reported that Marmol had been overheard telling his agent that he “couldn’t wait” to get out of Chicago. Marmol later refuted the story, and the fact that a blogger was wrong was reported with a little too much glee by most of the major media outlets.

I’m not going to pile on the writer of the blog in question, as I consider him a friend and colleague. I will only say that let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I’ve seen some pretty shit-poor writing in this town by the mainstream media lo these past few weeks, let alone the last few years. Before “real reporters” get all uppity about their superiority to bloggers, they may want to get their own houses in order. I’ve been burned by sources, too. You either trust your source or you don’t. If you trust a source, sometimes you take a leap of faith and go with it, and it doesn’t always work out. This happens whether you write for LOHO or for the New York freakin’ Times. If my Cubs source had told me the story, I probably would have written it up, too.  Someone on the internet was wrong. Big deal. Let’s all move on.

The Cubs have a well-earned day off today ahead of the upcoming weekend series against the Mets. While I generally hate off-days, this season, it’s probably therapeutic to take a break from wondering whether the 1908 or the 2010 Cubs are going to show up. Let’s all relax, enjoy the abundant Chicago sunshine, and breathe.

You might remember Jon Garland from his stint on the south side, or before that, as the guy the Cubs traded to the White Sox for Matt Karchner. I was going to make a joke about how old he is, but looked up his age and he’s a year younger than me. He’s bounced around the last few years, and I can’t find anything about him pitching anywhere last season. So far for 2013 he’s allowed 22 earned runs in 41 innings over the span of seven starts. Opposing batters are hitting .304 against him, totaling 48 hits allowed. Maybe the Cubs can add on to their Major League-leading 90 doubles and score some runs against the not-so-young Mr. Garland.

Tonight on the mound for the Cubs, we’ll see the flowing locks of Jeff Samardzija whipping about in the breeze. Young Mr. Spellcheck is looking to rebound from a horrible start in DC last Friday. In case you’d forgotten, he allowed seven runs (five earned) in five innings that night. He’s allowed 42 hits and 20 earned runs in 48.2 innings over eight starts. He’s also leading the league with six wild pitches.

Lineup after the jump.

DeJesus CF
Castro SS
Rizzo 1B
Soriano LF
Schierholtz RF
Valbuena 3B
Navarro C
Barney 2B
Samardzija P

The return of the Valbuena! Game time is 7:05 Central, and it will be broadcast on CSN. Let’s go team!

“It’s a tough decision because everybody has pitched pretty well,” Sveum said. “It’s going to be one of those things that will be unfortunate for somebody but it’s a reality and it’s going to happen.”

Carlos Villanueva, who started Tuesday, has the most experience as a swingman.

“It might lean to who we’re playing that series, the matchups,” Sveum said. “Maybe you go to a six-man rotation for a week because of matchups. You never know what the bullpen is like. A lot of things come into play. We’ll make that decision — and I know you guys are going to keep asking this question every day. It’s not going to change.”

A six-man rotation? That makes no sense, especially when what he’s describing is a spot start. He’s not even talking about a six-man rotation. Is he just trying to get our hackles raised? Is Dale Sveum trolling us? Fortunately for Dale Sveum (and our sanity), Carlos Villanueva may have made the decision an easy one after last night’s start. He gave up seven runs on 12 hits in five innings.

“I know we’ll be a stronger team when he [Garza] comes back,” Villanueva said after the game. “A night like tonight didn’t help my cause.”

(snip)

“You would be lying if you said stuff doesn’t cross your mind when it comes up, but, like I said, we’re professionals,” he stated. “It’s hard to play that way [thinking of your job], hard to pitch, hard to play defense.”

(snip)

“Chalk it up to a bad day at the office,” Villanueva said. “When the good ones get hit, obviously the bad ones get hit even harder.”

At least there will be one more slightly competent pitcher in the bullpen when Villanueva is sent there.

Of course, who’s pitching doesn’t matter if the Cubs offense continues to be as unproductive as it has so far this season. Carrie Muskat shared a few stats before last night’s game.

The Cubs have finally climbed above the Mendoza line when batting with runners in scoring position. Chicago entered Tuesday’s game batting .204 with RISP, still lowest in the Major Leagues. The team leads the National League with 87 doubles and 131 extra-base hits. But they rank 10th in runs scored.

They lead the league in doubles and extra-base hits, but rank 10th in runs scored. The RISP is a good reason they haven’t been scoring runs, but they’ve also drawn nearly 40 fewer walks than their opponents (93-132). So while they’re hitting .248 to their opponents’ .234, their OBP is .304 compared to opponents’ .311. And we all know that it’s harder to drive in runs when there isn’t anyone on base. But all of that adds up to a deficit of 10 runs (154-164) so far this season. That’s frustrating.

My point is that the Chicago Cubs are only five games back in the Wild Card standings. FIVE! That’s only one more than four! That’s single digits!

And no, I’m totally not getting all hyper after a three-game win streak and thinking the Cubs have a shot at the playoffs. But still. FIVE! FIVE games back! If they win tonight, it could be FOUR! FOUR GAMES BACK!

Five games back in the wild card standings is nothing to get exicted about in May, except when you totally expected your team to be, like, 27 games back at this point. This season, we hold on to what we can. I’m holding on to five games back in the wild card race. FIVE!

Speaking of five, could the Cubs be on their way to their first five-game win streak since 1967 (okay, I’ll admit. I don’t know how long it’s been, but it’s been a while)? We’ll find out tonight, as Carlos Villanueva (1-2, 3.02) takes the hill for Cubs.  He’ll face Jeff Francis (1-3, 6.90) who probably gets mistaken for Jeff Francouer all the time. Can the Cubs extend their winning streak to four games (four! it’s one less than five!)?

Tonight’s lineup:

DeJesus
Castro
Rizzo
Soriano
Hairston
Castillo
Ransom
Barney
Villanueva

First pitch is at 7:05 pm CT on WCIU, Just kidding! It’s on CSN.

The Cubs may be lacking in overall talent, but they aren’t lacking in confidence.

The stabilization of the closer’s role since Kevin Gregg took over, the continued dominance of the starters and the recent improvement of the offense has the players believing they’re not as far away as most observers believe.

These rooftop owners are a lot easier to get along with, as is LEGO Tom Tunney

“The only thing I think about is that — winning it here,” Starlin Castro said. “It’s going to be unbelievable. That’s why those people (President Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer) are signing people here for multiyear (deals), to be here when the team is competing every season.

“I think it’s going to happen pretty soon.”

Travis Wood turned in his eighth straight quality start in a 9-1 victory over the Rockies, improving to 4-2 with seven shutout innings.

Kyuji Fujikawa and Carlos Marmol finished it against a Rockies team that has fallen back to earth after a 13-5 start.

Personally, I think Carlos Marmol’s biggest contribution to the game was making fans wonder if a 9-0 lead in the top of the 9th was enough, but maybe that’s just me. You can check out the box score here. Just look at all those runs!

While I’m happy to know the kids have confidence, I worry about them a bit. Mostly because they say things like this:

Aaahhhhhh. Slow down there, kiddo. Do we still have that team psychologist on staff?

As for Rizzo’s teammates, they have big plans for his brand new garbage bags of money:

Cubs starter Jeff Samardzija, who told a small group of reporters on Monday he is not thinking about a long-term deal right now, was in agreement on the feel-good effect of his teammates’ newfound riches.

“This is exciting for the organization and for a class-act guy like Rizz,” Samardzija said. “You have to have a group of close-knit guys who love playing together. We have guys who love playing together and spending time with each other.

“Cassy and Rizzo are a great examples of what we want to do in the future. If you do what they do — working hard and do whatever it takes to win ball games — that is what it is all about.”

Russell may have the best short-term view of Rizzo’s mega-million deal.

“I am happy it happened to one of my friends so he can buy me dinners and lunches all the time,” Russell said. “He can also take me and the guys out and pick up the bar tab.”

Now that Rizzo is locked up for 7 yerars, we’re starting to hear whispers of behind-the-scenes negotiating with both Jeff Samardzija and Matt Garza. How do you feel about Garze, Cubs fans? Is he worth a long-term deal?

And here’s your extra-special good news for the day, courtesy of John over at Cubs Den:

Brett Jackson went 0-4 with a walk and that may not mean a whole lot, but he did not strikeout.  In fact, he has only struck out twice in his last 22 PAs, covering 5 games in which he has hit .333.  He has lowered his strikeout rate to 27%.  Whether this this is just a good run or a genuine long term change remains to be seen.

It would be so nice to see Brett Jackson turn things around and be back with the big club, even though I have no idea where they’d put him. A nice problem to have.

The Cubs and Rockies are back at it tonight at 7 pm CT on CSN.