I Want to Like Tony Campana and Other Bullets

Last night, John Grabow was given two innings in which to blow the game, while potential 2012 bullpenner John Gaub sat in the bullpen and watched. This dead horse needs additional beating…

  • The Cubs’ rotation is set for the rest of the month, barring injury. It’ll be Dempster/Garza/Wells/Lopez/Coleman the rest of the way.
  • Tony Campana beat out a routine grounder to first base last night in the 12th, but was called out. Campana, who’s already fighting for a 2012 roster spot, was pissed. “I usually don’t [argue],” he said. “But a big part of the game … [I] got a little riled up. Going down, I have the best view of it. I knew I beat it, and [Votto] didn’t even get there at first.” Again I say: Tony, why can’t you just get on base more? I want to like you SO much…
  • Reliever Marcus Hatley has been added to the group of Cubs prospects headed to the Arizona Fall League. I’m not quite sure how that works, as the Cubs already have six attendees (plus taxi-squader Jeff Beliveau (perhaps Hatley’s doing that as well)). Hatley, 23, has been in the Cubs’ system since being taken as a 39th rounder back in 2006. He only just made it to AA this year after a dominant start to the year in A ball and High A. This was his first year as a reliever, so perhaps the Cubs like what they saw, and want to know if he could really make it as a reliever in the bigs. The Cubs have to decide whether to put Hatley on the 40-man roster soon if they want to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft.
  • Speaking of which… I started a discussion on the Message Board about the Rule 5 Draft, about which the Cubs will soon have to make a variety of decisions related to the 40-man roster. If you want to see the full list of players/prospects who are currently exposed to the Rule 5 Draft and at risk of being lost, that’s your place to go.
  • Pitching prospect Chris Carpenter, who was rehabbing an oblique injury for most of the last month, might not be too happy about not getting a September call-up. A couple days ago, the Iowa Cubs’ season ended, and Carpenter tweeted: “Nice to know how ppl really feel about you….headed back home for the offseason.” The tweet has since been deleted. Coincidence that Hatley was added to the AFL roster yesterday? Probably. But weird, nevertheless.
  • It was already all but official, but now it’s even more all-but-officially-official, Brett Jackson will not be called up this month. He’ll play for Team USA this Fall, and then he’ll come to Spring Training, probably with a chance to win the starting center field job. The decision not to call him up, by the way, came directly from Tom Ricketts, after consultation with the baseball ops folks.
  • Bruce Levine had a weekly chat yesterday. Among the more interesting points: the Fleita extension won’t impact the GM search, Levine thinks the Cubs should go hard after CJ Wilson, and Kerry Wood will probably either re-sign with the Cubs or retire at the end of the year.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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