Randy Wells Made Himself Want to Throw Up and Other Bullets

With Matt Garza taking on Kyle Kendrick today, this is a game the Cubs have to win if they’re going to leave this series feeling good about themselves.

  • It’s kind of sad to read this pre-game write-up on Randy Wells from early yesterday (in which he talks about how much he wants to stay up with the big club, and how he feels some folks have the wrong impression of him), and then to watch what unfolded in his start last night. Of walking the pitcher in a crucial spot in the fourth inning, Randy Wells said, “it makes me want to throw up.” It’s uncertain what will happen to Wells on Thursday when Ryan Dempster returns, as Dale Sveum has said Wells is in the mix to take the long-relief role in the pen, though I doubt Cubs’ management would rather have Wells in the pen than starting at AAA. The question I have: doesn’t Wells have to clear revocable waivers again if the Cubs try to send him to AAA again (Update: See this comment below. The gist is, by my calculation, so long as he’s optioned by Friday, May 4, he doesn’t have to clear waivers again.)? Would he? Given that it’s revocable, and teams know the Cubs aren’t going to let Wells go for nothing, it’s possible he’d go unclaimed. We’ll just have to see what happens, I suppose.
  • Welington Castillo will probably see more starts than Steve Clevenger did (more on Clevenger’s injury in a bit), thanks in part to Geovany Soto’s upper back issue, and in part because of his past catching experience. “I might play Castillo a little more just because he’s a catcher that’s caught all the time every day and a guy that can swing the bat as well and a guy that has been playing well and can stop a running game,” manager Dale Sveum said. “He might play a little bit more than Clevenger. Soto is still the everyday guy.” Sounds good to me, though I’d be failing if I didn’t point out that the biggest criticism of Castillo is that he doesn’t handle the pitching staff well, and, in his last five starts in the bigs going back to last year, the team is 0-5. In all five starts, the starting pitcher got slapped around (the best start was a Matt Garza six inning, three earned runs on five hits and four walks.
  • Here’s a super hilarious, totally original, never-been-joked-about-before cartoon depiction from Boston about the Cubs’ chances of winning the World Series this year. Ha. Ha. Ha. Nice job, Will O’Toole.
  • On this day in 1983, Chicago Cubs manager Lee Elia unleashed the fury on Cubs fans. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, or if you just want to hear it again, here you go. Be warned, the language is … coarse.
  • Why the hell would anyone want to hear Joe Buck offer how he would call the Cubs winning the World Series? Seriously, who asked him to do this? Do you know how much twisted pleasure it gives Buck in being able to call it, knowing that it’s entirely fake (as he offers barbs throughout)? Gross:
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    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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