We’ve been waiting on the Cubs to make official the signings of Carlos Villanueva and Scott Hairston. The catch to both was that there were no open spots on the 40-man roster, so two players would have to be chopped. The Cubs finally got around to chopping one of them Saturday to make the Villanueva signing official. In case you’d forgotten about Lendy Castillo, here’s some background:

Castillo began his career as a shortstop in the Phillies organization, but converted to a pitcher in 2010 and showed enough promise for the Cubs to select him in the 2011 Rule 5 draft.

The 23-year-old appeared in 13 games for the big-league club last season, suffering through a 7.88 ERA and 2.25 WHIP in 16 innings.

Castillo went on the disabled list May 11 with a groin strain and missed several months before being recalled in mid August. He had never pitched above the Single-A level before 2012.

Will Lendy stick with the organization or go the way of his Rule 5 predecessor David Patton? I doubt there are any teams dying to sign him, but you wouldn’t have expected any team to pick him in the Rule 5, either. As for Villanueva, in case you’d forgotten about him…

By placing him on waivers, the Cubs risk losing Castillo to another team, but it has cleared room for Villanueva, whose flexibility will come in handy on this year’s team. The former Blue Jay and Brewer has made 56 starts in his MLB career and 245 relief appearances, with a 4.26 ERA and 1.30 WHIP.

Welcome aboard, Carlos. At least you’re not Lendy!

» Continue reading “Chicago Cubs Monday Headlines: Carlos Villanueva In, Lendy Castillo Out”

Trade rumors surrounding the Cubs this offseason have been mostly nonexistent. Sure, they’ve signed some free agent pitchers, but we want trades! Unfortunately, this one sounds like it’s not going to happen.

The Phillies, interested in a right-handed batter to hit behind cleanup man Ryan Howard, talked to the Cubs about a swap of Domonic Brown for Alfonso Soriano but may still be slightly more inclined to sign a free agent, such as Cody Ross or perhaps even Josh Hamilton.

Phillies people are said to be split over how hard to try for Soriano, who had 32 home runs, 108 RBI and a .262 batting average with vastly improved outfield defense.

(snip)

The Cubs are believed willing to pay all but $10 million of the $36 million remaining on Soriano’s deal if they can receive good prospects back. The Cubs are all about gathering assets for the future.

With Soriano’s production last season, 2/$10MM seems like a steal, no? Another place that would seem to make sense for the Fonz is Houston, which is heading to the AL and needs a DH.

The Cubs previously shopped Alfonso Soriano to the Astros as a possible DH, but Houston doesn’t have enough money even with Chicago picking up the bulk of what is owed to him, tweets Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com.

Really? Houston doesn’t have $5MM a year to pay a DH? It looks like their top salary commitment for 2013 is Jed Lowrie at $1.15MM. How can they not afford Soriano?

» Continue reading “Cubs Wednesday Headlines: We Have A Rumor”

Chris Volstad  (0-5)  hasn’t won a game since last July.

That, his 6.92 ERA, and the fact that he’s facing Roy Halladay (3-3, 3.20), doesn’t exactly instill me with a lot of confidence.

Then again, there’s something about the Cubs that seems to upset Roy Halladay (which I know we can all relate to). In the last three years, he’s 1-2 with a 4.24 ERA against the Cubs. So perhaps Volstad is due.

But probably not.

Either way, we’ll be here to get you through tonight’s imminent trauma. The lineup looks like this:

DeJesus rf
Campana cf
Castro ss
LaHair 1b
Soriano lf
Stewart 3b
Castillo c
Barney 2b
Volstad p

» Continue reading “Cubs Live Game Thread: V is For Victory?”

Tonight is the first official Cubs Social Media night, where the Cubs are actively courting twitter nerds. They’re having a fancy panel at the Captain Morgan Club, and get to hobnob in the right field bleachers, trying to out-tweet each other while enjoying their free t-shirts, baseball cards and one hot dog. Make sure to follow Julie (@JulieDiCaro), as she’ll be keeping us abreast of any and all advancements on and off field tonight.

As for the on-field action, the Phillies limp into Chicago tonight. Vance Worley was supposed to start for the Phils, but due to elbow soreness, he’ll be replaced by Kyle Kendrick (0-3, 7.32). On the mound for the Cubs is Matt Garza (2-1, 2.56). Garza struggled through 5 innings in his last start, which was his first since his courageous battle against the flu. Hopefully he’ll have his rhythm back tonight and mow through the Phillies.

» Continue reading “Live Game Thread: Cubs Social Media Night (7:05 Central)”

So close... and yet so far.

The Cubs teased us tonight with a four-run comeback. The hope lasted all of five outs before it was mercilessly crushed beneath the speedy heels of Juan Pierre and Jimmy Rollins. Cubs lose, 6-4.

The Phillies sent nine batters to the plate in the first inning, and managed to rack up four runs off of Chris Volstad. The biggest problem was the infield defense, who were waving at weak grounders as they trundled into the outfield. The absence of Darwin Barney in favor of Blake DeWitt cannot be said to have helped matters.

It was pretty much DOOOOOOM after that point, as the Cubs bats managed only four hits over six innings. They did load the bases with no outs in the seventh, but scored only a single run, when Geovany Soto grounded into a double play. Everyone knew they were toast.

But then: Tony Campana and Bryan LaHair happened! Phillies reliever Antonio Bastardo did pretty much the only thing you’re not allowed to do against the Cubs and walked Campana. Tony promptly stole second. He then took off with a pitch to Starlin Castro, who deposited said pitch in left field, giving Campanarama! ample opportunity to score.

With Castro on first, LaHair stepped in. He had already doubled, back in the fourth inning. This time, he turned on a slider and launched it to right-center, tying the game and sending Twitter into an all-caps frenzy.

In the bottom half of the inning, Scott Maine did the equivalent of walking Campana and plunked Juan Pierre. Rollins singled him to third, and then Placido Polanco drove them both in with a double. Game over, man. Game over.

Jeff Samardzija faces Bronson Arroyo in the Matchup of Manes in Cincy tomorrow. Game starts at 6:10 CT on CSN+. Don’t miss all the flowing locks!

Two series in a row, that is.

If the Cubs take back-to-back series against the Cardinals and Phillies, we might have to completely revise our expectations for this team going forward.

Then again, maybe not.

Tonight, the Cubs will send Chris Volstad (0-3, 6.14)  to the hill, in hopes of taking 3 out of 4 games from Philly. For the Phillies, it will be Vance Worley (2-1, 2.16). I don’t hold out a ton of hope in CVol, but perhaps he’ll surprise me.

Tonight’s lineup:

DeJesus
Campana
Castro
LaHair
Soriano
Stewart
DeWitt
Soto
Volstad

» Continue reading “Cubs Live Game Thread: Can The Cubs Make It Two?”

Even after winning two of three against Philadelphia, the prospect of facing the mighty Phillies for four games was an unwelcoming prospect. As it turns out, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Cliff Lee are on the DL and the Cubs won’t have to face Cole Hamels. After three games in Philly, the Cubs have earned at least a split of the series. Yesterday’s main reason for victory was Matt Garza. He threw 7 scoreless innings, striking out 10. Mr. Garza, how did you do it?

“The game plan was to keep them off balance and try to induce weak ground balls or weak popups and that’s exactly what worked,” Garza said. “Certain things were there and certain weren’t. I threw a curveball about 22 feet high but other than that everything else was cool.”

Jimmy Rollins scored a leadoff hit, which turned out to be the only hit Garza surrendered. Was he thinking about the lost no-hitter?

“Nah, I was just taking it out by out,” Garza said. “That’s what I’ve been doing the last two outings. I just want to go hitter to hitter. You have to have all kinds of respect for those guys because it is the Phillies, you know. They’re a tough team. I just went out there and stuck to my game plan.”

Good to know he doesn’t dwell on no-hitters lost in the first inning. Dale Sveum, what did you see out there?

“When he’s right he has four pitches he can deal with, as well as velocity,” Sveum said. “He can go from 91 [mph] with his sinker and four-seam it up in the zone and get popups and swing and misses. He has a very good knack of what he’s doing out there too.”

Garza said in his first quote that not everything was working out there. What will happen when it is all working?

“If I don’t get in my own way,” he said. “If I don’t try to think too much and go after these guys and get us back in [the dugout]. They were really aggressive and that kind of played into my hand.”

Oh, so the Phillies’ bad plate approach had something to do with his performance. But he was still good.

» Continue reading “Cubs Monday Headlines: All Hail Garza”

Tony Campana

You cannot stop Tony Campana. It can’t be done. He’s terrible at getting on base, and I suspect that once this hot start wears off, he’ll continue to be so. But right now, he is a raging speed demon and there’s literally nothing you can do about it. He scored two of the Cubs’ runs in today’s 5-1 victory over Philadelphia.

Today was the second Stats Sunday broadcast, and Len and Bob were discussing BABIP. Which made it fascinating that the only hit the Cubs gave up over the first EIGHT WHOLE INNINGS was a lucky bloop single by the very first Phillies hitter, Jimmy Rollins.

Thereafter, Matt Garza was perfect, setting down 19 – not a typo – batters in a row, before walking Juan Pierre in the seventh. Rollins was even erased on a gorgeous throw to second by Welington Castillo, so Garza actually faced the minimum during that stretch, while striking out 10. After the walk, he finished out the inning cleanly and was lifted for Rafael Dolis, who was also perfect.

Notably not perfect was Carlos Marmol, who pitched the ninth and gave up one hit and 3 – also, unfortunately, not a typo – walks, one of which forced in a run. But after taking another couple of years off my life, he managed to finish out the game without any further damage. I’m pretty sure this roller coaster is just going to be our lives for the next couple of years, folks.

The bats, for their part, did exactly what they were supposed to do today. It felt really good to see everything fall into place.

» Continue reading “Cubs Game Recap: Matt Garza Rules”

Randy Wells had a bit of a struggle last night, leaving the game in the fourth inning after allowing four runs. Among those who scored was Joe Blanton, who Randy walked on four pitches. How do you feel about walking the opposing pitcher, Randy?

“Obviously the walk to the pitcher is unacceptable and it makes me want to throw up,” Wells said. “I made a pretty decent pitch to Rollins and he just kept it fair. But that has nothing to do with it. It was downhill before that even happened.”

Dale Sveum, how did that inning make you feel?

“It was too bad because he was pitching pretty well and he just couldn’t even find the strike zone,” manager Dale Sveum said. “Things were looking good going into that inning and the lineup was set to just run right through it and he couldn’t even get through the pitcher without walking him.”

So you feel sad and angry? Us, too. Back to you, Randy. What exactly happened?

“It’s mindboggling to me,” Wells said. “I can watch the tape and see but it’s obviously a mechanical thing. Runners get on and the tension gets high and you kind of rush and speed up and I’m just burying [pitches in the dirt] that aren’t even close. You have to make pitches when your back is against the wall and I didn’t do it tonight.”

(snip)

“I had a pretty good changeup going,” he said. “The gameplan was working. I just got away from it and lost command of the changeup. I threw way too many, back to back. I brought the hitters back into the count and didn’t make the pitches when I had to.”

Oh, Randy.

» Continue reading “Sunday Headlines & Game Thread: Cubs @ Phils, 12:35 Central”

Get used to it.

Ehhhhhh.

Everything was pretty cool for the first three innings, but Randy Wells shattered our illusions when he handed the Phillies a four-run fourth. Both sides would add a run later in the game, which culminated in a 5-2 Cubs loss.

Starlin Castro and Bryan LaHair put the Cubs on the board the first chance they got. Castro lined a single and stole second (he nabbed two tonight, giving him 10 on the year), setting him up to score on LaHair’s double. Wells proceeded to cruise, holding the Phillies hitless through three.

But Randy lost it in the fourth. He faced eight Phils and surrendered four runs on three hits before he was lifted in favor of Michael Bowden, who mercifully killed the inning. Bowden went a total of 2.1 innings on mop-up duty and gave up another run in the sixth.

The Cubs staged a rally in the eighth, when Tony Campana, pinch-hitting for Shawn Camp, singled and later scored on Castro’s fielder’s choice. That was all they would get, though. Phillies starter Joe Blanton dominated Chicago, striking out eight over seven and a third innings.

In fact, the Cubs just sucked at the plate tonight, managing only six hits over the course of the evening and striking out a grand total of 11 times. As for walks, well, excuse me for a moment while I go sob in a corner.

Steve Clevenger, as you may have heard, flew back to Chicago to have treatment for the tightness in his side. Geovany Soto was scratched last-minute with back problems, giving us the pleasure of a Beef Castle start tonight. Unfortunately, it didn’t amount to much: 0-for-3 with a strikeout. Here’s hoping he heats up, because he may be all we’ve got for a while.

Hope for All CubKind Matt Garza faces Kyle Kendrick tomorrow at 1:35. Should you desire to view the contest, you may do so on WGN.