We all know the struggles that Edwin Jackson has been through so far in his first year with the Chicago Cubs. He’s been particularly bad at Wrigley Field so far this season. Despite picking up the loss in yesterday’s game, he pitched reasonably well, allowing three earned runs in 6.2 innings. But he’s still a disappointment to Bruce Levine. Let’s check out his story with the headline “Jackson’s Struggles at Wrigley Continue”.

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.

» Continue reading “Chicago Cubs Headlines/Game Thread: Marlon Byrd Foils Cubs”

I’ll be honest, I had no idea that Marlon Byrd was on the Mets, or even that he was still in major league baseball. In fact, until today, I don’t think I’ve thought about him since he was suspended for PEDs last . . well, whenever that was.  But today, today Marlon will make his triumphant return to Wrigley Field. And he’s bringing his ginormous biceps with him:

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.

» Continue reading “Cubs Live Game Thread: The Return of Marlon Byrd”

The Cubs entered the offseason with plenty of needs, not the least of which was starting pitching. Their first free agent signing just happens to be a starting pitcher, Scott Baker. He signed a one year contract yesterday worth $5.5 million, with an additional $1.5 million in possible performance bonuses. How did the Cubs get him at that price? He’s coming off Tommy John surgery.

“He’s put the work in to get himself on an excellent timetable so he’s got pretty much every day plotted out from here through Spring Training,” said Theo Epstein, Cubs president of baseball operations. “If things go perfectly, he’ll be stretched out to five or six innings for that first week of the season.”

The Cubs won’t rush Baker, who has pitched all or part of seven seasons with the Twins, from 2005-11, totaled 28 or more starts in three straight seasons, 2008-10.

Baker was already beginning to throw and said his plan is to use the Spring Training starts as part of his rehab process. He did get interest from other teams, including the Twins.

“It’s a big season for me personally coming off an injury,” Baker said. “I wanted somewhere where my family could enjoy and we could have a lot of fun and I could help the team be productive.”

So, lame starting pitchers are the new market inefficiency?

“You don’t set out looking for Tommy John guys,” Epstein said. “The reality is it’s not exactly a buyer’s market for pitching so you have to take your risks. Do you want to take a risk on a guy with bad makeup? Do you want to take a risk on a guy with bad command? Or do you want to take the risk on a guy you really believe in who is coming off Tommy John surgery and has appropriate value points? I think we’re very comfortable placing our bet on Scott Baker.”

I guess they are.

» Continue reading “Cubs Wednesday Headlines: All Hail Scott Baker”

There is precious little to get excited about with the 2012 Cubs, so finding things to talk about on an off day are painful. Enter Jeff Samardzija’s work load:

‘‘We’ve got a plan laid out for him, something we’ve talked about with Jed [Hoyer] and Theo [Epstein],’’ pitching coach Chris Bosio said. ‘‘We’ll follow our guidelines and try to take advantage of some off days and pitch-count days. But he’s a big, strong guy. He wants the ball.’’

What does the Shark see for himself this season?

‘‘Obviously, as a starting pitcher, you’re looking at that 200 number,’’ he said.

Dale Sveum , what say you (please say he swung the bat good that one day)?

‘‘You’re going to keep an eye on everything he does, the innings, the pitch counts,’’ said manager Dale Sveum, who also made it clear he wants to make no excuses for what he called the ‘‘uncharted waters’’ Samardzija is in this season.

‘‘He’s a max-effort guy, and he’s doing things he hasn’t done for a few years now: starting and maxing out. And not only that, but maxing out in the big leagues, where the intensity is a lot more than starting in the minor leagues.’’

So basically, we have no idea just what Samardzija’s limits will be this year, and neither do the Cubs.

» Continue reading “Cubs Friday Headlines: Shark Watch 2012″

With the departure of Marlon Byrd, all of Cubdom is wondering when Brett Jackson will be patrolling center field on the North Side. Jed Hoyer wants us to know that we’ll see him when he gets here. And that won’t be right now.

“Brett’s playing hard and all the reports on what he’s doing in Iowa are good,” Hoyer said. “He’s still early in his Triple-A career. He hasn’t had that many plate appearances down there. He still has work to do. We feel he’s a big part of our future but I wouldn’t read into anything as far as timing.”

And to anyone paying attention this year, it should come as no surprise that the Cubs have been trying to trade Byrd since spring training.

“The slow start didn’t play any part at all,” Hoyer said. “We had talked about a deal [with the Red Sox] at the end of Spring Training. Our feeling was we’ve been trying to acquire relief pitching since the end of the winter. We felt like an area we have some surplus with young players we want to play is in the outfield, so that was a big part of it.”

So we’ll probably see Tony Campana scampering around Wrigley for awhile. Speaking of young Cubs, Starlin Castro made errors six and seven yesterday.

“Sometimes when I make errors, it’s tough for me,” Castro said. “[I think] that’s not gonna happen because I work too much on my defense. But I’m still working, concentrating, I’ll be good on my defense too.”

Keep on keepin’ on, Starlin.

» Continue reading “Sunday Headlines/Game Thread: Reds @ Cubs, 1:20 Central”

Marlon Byrd has been traded to Boston for RHP Michael Bowden and a player to be named later.

As for Bowden, he returns to the team for whom he rooted as a kid growing up in the Chicago suburbs. The 2005 supplemental first-round pick — at the time, the highest selection by the Sox of a high-school pitcher under former GM Theo Epstein — looked like one of the top pitching prospects in the Red Sox system for several years, but his performance plateaued in the upper levels of the minors, where he was moved from the rotation to the bullpen.

The 25-year-old, who is now out of minor league options, went 2-2 with a 5.61 ERA in 39 big league games for the Red Sox, with a 3.00 ERA and three strikouts in three innings this year. However, the Sox designated him for assignment last weekend when they needed to clear a spot on the 40-man roster, and so he will have an opportunity to see if he can find success while pitching in the bullpen in the National League, reuniting with a number of officials (including Epstein and former Sox director of amateur scouting Jason McLeod, who is now Cubs Assistant GM) who saw him at his best in the minors.

While the identity of the player to be named is not known, a source said that it is not left-hander Andrew Miller(currently on the DL). That being the case, the Red Sox will have to create a spot on the 40-man roster in order to add Byrd to the major league roster.

Bob could probably hear the “squeeee!!!” I let out this morning upon reading this tweet all the way in New Zealand:

SQUEEEE!!!!! Right?

If the Cubs are indeed able to move Byrd, this mean we’ll see Brett Jackson in CF sooner rather than later? Does it mean Jackson will bring Anthony Rizzo with him? Or will Jed/Theo call up Tony Campana as a CF placeholder, causing me to beat my head against a brick wall to the point of unconsciousness?

Stay tuned for answers to these and more Cubs questions.

» Continue reading “Cubs Live Game Thread: Byrdless?”

This thing got a workout tonight.

I’m not gonna lie to you guys. It was bad out there.

Matt Garza was mostly sharp for the first five innings, but two two-run mistakes early on meant the Cubs were never really in this thing. It only got messier after Garza left. The final tally was 9-1 Marlins.

Mark Buehrle absolutely shut down the Cubs today, giving up only six hits. Jeff Baker, resident lefty-masher, got the start and had a two-hit day, leading off the seventh inning with a double and then scoring the Cubs’ only run on a groundout.

Chicago had a couple of chances earlier in the game. Barney and Castro led off the fourth with back-to-back singles, but never advanced any further. Geovany Soto and Marlon Byrd actually reached base today; Soto reached on an error by Hanley Ramirez, and Byrd actually broke his slump with a single to center.

Garza tried to bunt them over, but good lord is he bad at everything that isn’t pitching. The throw went to third, retiring Soto, and nobody else went anywhere.

» Continue reading “Cubs Game Recap: More Miami Homers”

Paul Maholm squared off against Jake Westbrook and the Cardinals today in a matchup that turned out to be precisely as exciting as I predicted it would. Despite teasing us with a promising first inning, Maholm returned to form in the second and the bullpen wasn’t any better. The Cubs slide to 3-7 with a 10-3 loss to St. Louis.

Maholm threw just 70 pitches today, 42 of them for strikes. He managed a 1-2-3 first inning that got everyone’s optimism generators warmed up, but promptly plunked Carlos Beltran to lead off the second, and it was downhill from there.

He followed that up by almost hitting Yadier Molina, and then never throwing another strike ever (give or take). His line for the day: 4.0 IP, 6H, 6ER, 1BB, 2SO. He also served up a three-run homer to Yadier in the third and hit Daniel Descalso too, for good measure. His ERA is a ridiculous and tragic 13.50.

Lendy Castillo and Rodrigo Lopez each pitched two innings of relief, and each gave up two runs. Castillo collected four strikeouts, but also gave up a two-run homer (to Matt Carpenter, the Lance Berkman fill-in) and a walk. If there’s such a thing as a “three true outcomes” pitcher, I submit to you that Lendy Castillo is that man.

» Continue reading “Cubs Game Recap: Maholm Gives Up 6 In Blowout”

None of us had high expectations heading into this season, but I think the first six games have gone even worse than most of us expected. Despite the 1-5 record, Darwin “Pollyanna” Barney is keeping the faith that the Cubs can turn it around.

“We’ve played pretty well,” said Cubs second baseman Darwin Barney, who went 1-for-4 in the loss. “We’ve run the bases pretty aggressive. We’re putting ourselves in the games and opportunities to win. We could easily have three wins under our belt, four wins. We’re just going to keep going. It’s Week 1. We’re six games in. I don’t think any of us are really pulling that chute yet.

“You look back at the week, and we had opportunities to win every ball game we’ve been in. That’s good, and we’re going to build on that, and the wins will start coming.”

I’m glad Darwin’s not giving up, since he’s being paid to go out there every day. I do hope he doesn’t really believe that the wins will start coming. Otherwise he’s just going to be disappointed.

“You put into the perspective the start the Red Sox had last year when they started and they come back,” Barney said. “It’s six games in. We’d like to be in better position, but there’s a lot of game left. There’s a lot to be played and a lot to prove still.”

Oh no. He thinks this team is like last year’s Red Sox. I think the only likely comparisons are that they both started the year poorly and neither will have made the playoffs.

» Continue reading “Cubs Thursday Headlines: Barney Gives Pep Talk”