Cubs HR pace: 62
Soriano XBH/GIDP: 0/3
Marlon Byrd's OPS+: -32
Bryan LaHair PA/game: 2.5

Yes, it might be time to start playing LaHair against lefties, just to see what happens. I know he missed a couple games to start the year, but it's pretty sad when your best hitter can't officially qualify for the batting title. Scratching my head on this one, Dale - play Baker at second against lefties, not first.

Courtesy of Bruce Miles:

DeJesus RF
Barney 2B
Castro SS
LaHair 1B
Soriano LF
Stewart 3B
Soto C
Byrd CF
Volstad P

Run Differential: -19, worst in NL
SRS: 13th in NL
Pace: 37-125

The Marlins series was what made me finally realize that this team could very likely drop 100 games this year. I expect Garza to be dealt, which will weaken an already lousy rotation. Wood's shoulder is already an issue. The offense looks like it will be anemic with the occasional outburst. Byrd looks awful, Soriano looks cooked, and Geo suddenly looks like a platoon hitter.

I guess on the upside, I kind of enjoy DeJesus, LaHair, Castro, and Stewart.

No one series should make you think that. Short of injuries, this team won't touch 100 losses.

They have to play at a .470 pace (70-79) from here on out to get to my preseason pick of 73 wins. Still doable!

Honestly, as bad as they've been, they've had a lot go very badly, including a very tough schedule to start the year (which will continue through the end of the month), and the only things that have really gone surprisingly right have been Dempster's good starts and LaHair's dominance. Byrd, Soriano and Soto will play better, and even if they don't start actually playing well, sucking less will help a lot. Things will settle, and they won't be near as bad as this last week.

I'm eager to see a good Volstad start today - he's been pretty unlucky his first two starts. Maybe today he catches some breaks.

More bad luck for Volstad already. A weak seeing-eye grounder for a single, a SB that would have been an easy out with a good throw, a subsequent error on the bad throw allowing the runner to get to third, and then a single up the middle to score him.

Oh well.

What the ####### fuck

Well that was interesting, word filter.

I wonder why Volstad's not wearing sleeves. Or more to the point, why the team wouldn't require him to wear sleeves on a day like today.

Perhaps it's just coincidence, but his command was really spotty in that first inning, even though his actual stuff looked decent. He didn't look at that much unlike Marmol on a bad day, actually, where his slider's got a ton of movement (Soto dropped a couple) but he can't locate it to save his life.

Castro killed that ball. Even on a lot of days when the wind is blowing in, that's a homer. Good to see him get a hold of one even if it's a bad day for it.

It's unreal how good LaHair looks so far this year, his crazy-high K rate notwithstanding. He now has 6 of the team's 28 extra-base hits, despite not having enough PA to qualify for the batting title.

Not watching; was that something Marlon played into a triple?

Not watching; was that something Marlon played into a triple?

Hard to say ... he looked like he got a bad jump on the ball but I'm not sure he'd have gotten it anyway. He might have been able to hold it to a double with a little bit better of an angle, but I think that's the best he'd have been able to do.

I increasingly think that Rafael Dolis will be in the minors soon.

More on Byrd - it looked like he was shading towards left, so when the ball was hit to center-right he wasn't in position. He had a really long way to go to cut it off, but looked like he took a route that was a little too lateral instead of just trying to keep it from going to the wall.

But again, I don't know if he would have gotten there anyway given where he started.