Dusty Says

This weblog does consume some time, and now that I’m pretty busy all week, I’m in need of a game reviewer for the rest of the season; someone that can post 2-3 times a week about whatever is happening in baseball and, of course, news about the Cubs.

If you can do that, you will be registered in the server with full powers; most of the posts (game reviews, previews, etc) are already coded. Thus, you will need to change the pitchers in turn and the date. Easy as that.

Just leave a comment below if you’re interested. Please be.

The Cubs management have decided to pull Kerry Wood from the roster for the rest of the year. They hope to get him back pitching in 2006. He’s expected to have surgery this week; this is what the team dr. had to say about the subject:

A cleanup procedure may be all that is necessary. That’s what the Cubs expect.

O’Neal said if nothing significant is discovered during the procedure, Wood will be ready for spring training after an offseason of rehab.

Reports Cubsnet:

The Cubs have put Aramis Ramirez on the DL with a strained quadricep. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway because team management doesn’t yet seem to get it), this development should take whatever wind was still in the Cubs playoff sails. I’d just as soon let Ramirez take the rest of the year off, since he’s seemed to have nagging injuries bothering him all year (groin, back, and so forth). There’s no reason I can think of to run him back out there for the last couple meaningless weeks of the year. This concept also applies to Kerry Wood, by the way.

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When did Mark Prior switched teams and joined the opposition? Even if the Atlanta Braves played a great game, our pitcher practically delivered them the win on their hands. Well, him and Rafael Furcal. The Cubs lost again today, and with that the series.

Prior had been sharp (though with not a lot of control: he walked four batters.) until the seventh inning, when with no outs and the game 1-0, Jeff Francoeur singled. Ryan Langerhans, then, bunted again but this time Mark grabbed the ball and tried to make a forceout at second; apparently, he chose himself to throw there. The throw landed on the shallow outfield allowing Francoeur to get to third. Both runners scored on a Furcal single.

Prior pitched 120+ pitches again, and he looked tired before the single that put the game out of reach at 3-1 (yes, out of reach. You know that we don’t score a lot.); he finished the day at 131 pitches, a little bit too high for a pitcher who’s been mostly dealing with high pitch counts during the last couple of games.

“It just kept flying,” Prior said. The throw to second unnecessarily cost the Cubs another game that was rather close; Jorge Sosa (9-2) pitched effective six innings.

You may or may not have noticed that this weblog has been showing more advertisements as of late. I promise I will never set up popups on the site, though those banners below were just necessary; the weblog needs traffic and traffic needs advertisements. I hope you don’t mind them, as they’re very discrete and won’t affect the loading time of our site.

To make up for the advertisements, I will install new plugins for the weblog.

Mark Prior allowed three runs or less for the 18th time in 21 starts. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty)

According to CBS,
Ronny Cedeno was called up from the minors and was in the clubhouse but was not activated.

Now, the question becomes: who goes down? The obvious would be to DL Nomar Garciaparra, but the same article stated that he doesn’t want to be disabled and that the Cubs aren’t planning on doing so.

Thus, someone needs to go down. More on the subject when it becomes official.

I always seem to be in a better mood after a nice win. As a fan of Chicago sports I hate to be saying this but:

THE CLEVELAND INDIANS ARE ONLY 7 GAMES BACK AND THE TWINS ARE RIGHT BEHIND AT 9.5 GAMES BACK, AND YOU KNOW WHAT I COULDN’T BE HAPPIER

I don’t dislike the White Sox as a team, I just hold a little grudge for all those fans who were hoping in 2003 that the Cubs would fail in a spectacular manner, and the Cubs obliged. If the Sox somehow don’t make the playoffs this year it will be THE MOST REMARKABLE COLLAPSE IN SPORTS HISTORY!

I have said all along this year that the White Sox were playing well above their heads, more so than the Washington Nationals. The Sox were benefitting from a group of pitchers all pitching way over their heads for a long stretch of time, and some timely hitting. They are finally regressing and boy are they regressing pretty fast.

More than the likely the White Sox will make the playoffs,they have a 92% chance of making it. No one really expects them to go very far, not even Sox fans as a result of their dramatic crash back to Earth. That is why I am hoping that they find a way to miss the playoffs in spectacular fashion and then 1969 will be moved to second place as the worst collapse in Chicago Baseball History. Also it should be fun to watch Ozzie Guillen’s head explode when trying to explain the collapse to the press.