Some thoughts

As the Royals pull the plug on Allard Baird, Cub fans must content themselves with two pretty solid games in a row.  It is great to see Matt Murton turn it back on - he has nine hits in his last nineteen at bats, with two homers, two doubles and a couple of walks.  New hire Tony Womack has hit .500 since his call up, and the Cubs might as well ride his hot streak.  Of course, there is no excuse for his presence on the team in the first place.  It has also been nice to see Aardsma throw some serious heat in his two performances since his recall.  His numbers in Iowa were superb, so I hope this quick success breeds confidence and he lets his stuff lead his control.

Speaking of Iowa, Rich Hill promptly returned to Triple A and dominated Nashville, a team with some quality bats.  I’ve never been fond of the “Quadruple A” label, but Hill’s performance over the past year is shaking the foundations of that belief.  How does Rothschild figure in this situation?  Is it purely a psychological barrier?  Hill has disappointed, and I would be surprised to see him back in Chicago before September, but the numbers he has put up in the high minors are too strong to discount.

Mike Restovich continues to pound the ball in Iowa - he’s now at .324/.397/.658.  Meanwhile, Jacque Jones continues to face lefties.  The double he hit off Clausen after the rain delay yesterday was on as grooved a pitch by a struggling pitcher as I’ve seen in a long time.  Out of all the screw-ups this season by Cubs’ management, the handling of Restovich is about as criminal as it gets.  What the hell is going on?

Finally, with the recent reports on Mark Prior’s rehab start, I’ve found myself thinking more and more about the benefits a massive change in pitching philosophy could have on the Cubs’ staff in particular.  The idea is not new, but a modified four-man rotation might work wonders with these guys.  Zambrano, Prior and Wood all have issues with pitch efficiency.  On the other side of the coin, they all have great stuff.  What if the Cubs went with the following set-up:

Day 1 Zambrano
Day 2 Wood
Day 3 Maddux
Day 4 Prior
Day 5 Zambrano - Maddux available for middle relief
Day 6 Wood - Prior available for middle relief
etc.

Basically, give the starters 90-100 pitches and hopefully a slight uptick in stuff will follow if they know they won’t throw more than that.  Then bring in the guy who is on his side-throw day for two-three innings of high-leverage middle relief.  Outside of performance benefits, the accumulated stress of high pitch counts which is always a concern with Prior and Wood (and should be with Z as well) is eliminated.  With Howry, Eyre, Williamson, Ohman and Dempster pitching effectively, and Marshall/Novoa available for lower leverage situations, you release Rusch and are more than covered with an eleven man rotation.  It also opens up more options when the time comes to deal some of the middle relief later this season.

Of course, regardless of any inherent problems with the set-up described above, this will never happen.  Starting pitchers are still judged on win totals by most folks and will balk at undertaking a new roll that would obviously belittle that statistic.  A paradigm of nearly thirty years would have to be overcome as well by pitching coaches and managers who have grown up with the current system.  I do believe, however, that if Prior and Wood are part of the future of this organization, some out of the box thinking on how to use them can only help the club.