Early surprises

Obviously, it's still early in the baseball season. I will continue to say it's early in the baseball season at least until May, and possibly until June. Although the phrase "relatively early" could be used a lot in May regardless. But I digress. So far I've been caught off guard by a couple of things early this Cubs season, so I thought I'd share them.

First, where the hell did Jason Marquis come from? He's supposed to be a terrible pitcher, and yet he's been surprisingly consistent. His numbers aren't terrible, he hasn't had to leave a game in the 3rd inning (knock on wood) because he's given up 8 runs, and he isn't losing us games. In fact, he's kept us in every single game, which is sadly more than you can say for Carlos Zambrano.

And it's not just Marquis. I will admit that I was only cautiously optimistic coming into this season about Rich Hill. I know he came on strong last year, and I know he was pretty dominant throughout his career in the minors, but I just did not see him returning to form right out of the gates. And not only those two, but Ted Lilly has been lights out as well. Now I know we're only 3 starts into the season for these guys, but still, this sort of consistency and performance wasn't expected this early at all. I didn't know if Lilly or Marquis would put together 3 quality starts in a row throughout the entire season, so for it to happen this early is just a huge bonus.

Second, unsurprisingly, Jacque Jones is the same old player. He may be slightly better in the field what with his arm being repaired or recovered or whatever, but he's the exact same hitter in the plate. He may warm up as the season goes along, but he's not going to get on base enough, and he's not going to hit for a high enough average. And he doesn't take enough pitches to hit in the two hole. He swings at shitty pitches, so a pitcher can get him to 0-2 without a problem. Once you get him there, he's going to swing at just about anything, so he doesn't benefit from batting in front of Derrek Lee. In fact, I don't know where he benefits in the lineup, but it's probably going to be at 5 or 6 only.

Another surprise is Ryan Theriot. After starting out the season slowly, he has come on incredibly strong. And he is showing that he deserves at-bats. He was another player I was only cautiously optimistic of because of his inexperience. But daaaaamn.

I can't get over the fact that Theriot is playing BECAUSE he deserves at-bats. That never would have happened under Oldy McNoyoungguys. A player can actually earn his way into the lineup rather than just have it handed to him because he's older, and de facto better. This is just boggling my mind.

Anyways, now to the bad news. With Soriano down, we're going to likely see more of Jacque Jones in the outfield instead of less. And, a question for me is how long Soriano is going to be out. I guess it isn't a big deal necessarily, but if he's going to end up on the DL for 15 days, which it doesn't sound like will happen, we should get Pie up here ASAP so we have a solid-fielding center fielder. Ideally, you'd rather have Soriano go down when Pie wouldn't have to lead off, and maybe with Theriot hitting so well, Pie wouldn't have to, but I'd still like to see Pie up if Soriano is out for an extended length of time.

And we're all under the assumption that Jones is gone as soon as Pie comes up, right? I guess, as a counter-argument to my previous point, it doesn't make sense to move Pie up and down a lot, so we should only bring him up if we're going to leave him up. I digress. What we should be doing is trying to facilitate Pie's time with the ballclub by trying to get rid of Jacque Jones. We don't even need someone of equal value. Hell, we have new scouts, maybe we can find a gem in someone's system. Anyways, Jones needs to be gone.

I could also see us trading a left-handed reliever. Neal Cotts has been lights out thus far, and having 3 lefties in the bullpen doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe we could package Jacque Jones and Scott Eyre for, say, Johan Santana. Hell, we'd even throw in Wade Miller. That's fair, right?

I am hoping that after last night's performance, Lou will realize that having Jacque Jones in the 2-hole just isn't working. And it doesn't work having him in the 3-hole even more. He needs to hit down in the lineup where he can do damage with runners on, and yet not be a rally killer. Floyd can rotate with Murton in left, but Murton needs to get his at-bats.

Also, I am not averse to trading Cesar Izturis in any sort of package. I think Ronnie Cedeno can handle short, as he's much better equipped this season. Hopefully. If not, we can lose a little range and glove-work and put DeRosa or Theriot at short. Hell, let's bring up Luis Montanez and put him at short (even though he's an outfielder now, and he may suck again, I'm not sure).

Anyways, there's some good, some bad, but as it warms up, things should only get better. Especially if Jacque Jones is gone.