- Dusty Baker has said that Micah Owings will bat 9th in this evening's Titanic Struggle against the Brewers. Hall o' Famer Hal says he would bat him 7th, and I agree. But Baker does appear to be open to at least considering moving Owings up in the order in the future. Baby steps.
- Fay tells us that Arroyo was "totally spent" after throwing 105 pitches last night to get through 6.3 innings. He says the Carpal Tunnel isn't bothering him, but his stamina isn't at 100% due to the time taken off to clear it up. He pitched pretty darn well though.
- Steve at RedlegNation is still banging the drum for Homer Bailey to be brought up from AAA and placed in the bullpen. Bailey's ejectionable performance last night certainly doesn't help his case.
- Baker and pitching coach Dick Pole are worried that the National League has figured out Edinson Volquez. After his second straight poor outing some may be concerned, but I'm not making any rash judgements. As Slyde explained yesterday, he's just not throwing strikes. Not really much to figure out there. I'm confident he'll snap out of it and start looking more like the guy we saw last May pretty soon. Hopefully.
- Hall o' Famer Hal asks if you think this team is a pretender or a contender. We are only a week into the season, but Hal says he's starting to believe the "speed and defense and manufacturing runs" sermons. So I checked into it. The Reds have scored a total of 33 runs in their 7 games, and 15 of those runs have come via the home run. So they have scored 45% of their runs from the long ball. The more things change, the more they stay the same, hmmm?
- The Hardball Times takes a look at the Cubs' Rule 5 Draft this past winter, in which they picked up reliever David Patton and lost reliever Donald Veal.
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The Crawfish Boxes looks at the Astros team rankings in various categories after this first week of baseball, and it ain't pretty. The Astros are 1-6, and if they continue the way they've been playing they are probably looking at winning 1 game a week for the rest of the summer.
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