Tired of Blasting Mike Quade and Other Bullets

A baby who wasn’t particularly interested in sleeping last night means today’s Bullets come later than usual. My schedule’s all screwed up, why shouldn’t your reading schedule be screwed up, too?

  • Of his dominant performance against the Brewers on Monday, Casey Coleman said his dad – a former big league pitcher, himself – gave him a tip about pitching from the right side of the rubber against righties, and that made all of the difference. I hope he’s right. The guy that pitched on Monday can have a spot in the Cubs’ rotation any year.
  • Fangraphs says Randy Wells is neither as good as he’s been recently, nor as bad as he was earlier in the season. One scary factoid: Wells’ BABIP in August was a scant .181, which is completely unsustainable. I still think he can be a good rotation option next year, but he’s got to earn it.
  • Paul Sullivan takes to his mailbag and says he’s tired of answering the same questions about Mike Quade’s lineup decisions this and last month. It seems strange to keep selecting those questions for your mailbag if you’re tired of answering them (why not just, you know, pick other questions to answer?), but I can only agree with Sullivan: I’ve grown weary of blasting Quade for incessantly playing “veterans” so he can “win” and “catch the Pirates.”
  • Speaking of which, Quade says he might get prospective back-up catcher Steve Clevenger a start in the final series of the season. That’ll help the next GM evaluate Clevenger as a possible back-up catcher for 2012 – one start!
  • Joe Cowley evaluates whose season has been more frustrating: Cubs’ fans, or White Sox’s fans? He concludes, primarily because of the Ozzie Guillen drama, that it’s been more frustrating for White Sox fans. Given the expectations that existed before the season, I won’t disagree too vehemently.
  • Bryan LaHair was named the Cubs’ minor league player of the year, which, like, duh. Jeff Beliveau took the pitcher of the year honors after tearing up two levels (High A and AA) as a reliever.
  • Jay Jackson (AAA SP), Nate Samson (AA UTL), Justin Bour (High A 1B), and Austin Kirk (A SP) also won awards for community service, the first time the Cubs are handing out such awards. Of Jackson, the Iowa Cubs said he is “becoming known as much for ‘pitching in’ around the community as he is for pitching.” Excusing the painful pun, that’s a guy I’d like to cheer for in Chicago.
  • BN user philoe beddoe is posting a series on the Message Board of the “All Crype Team,” crype being philoe’s word for a hyped prospect who proved to be crappy Major Leaguer. A warning, though: reading the series will make you deeply depressed about what should have/could have been. Already featured are Earl Cunningham, Ty Griffin, Ryan Harvey, Brooks Kieschnick, and Gary Scott. It hurts me just to type those names.
  • 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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