As expected, today the Chicago Cubs will activate pitchers Ryan Dempster (sore quad) and Kerry Wood (scrambled shoulder) from the disabled list, and will send pitchers Randy Wells and Scott Maine back to Iowa.
Wells got a couple starts filling in for Dempster, and he was not successful. Apparently Wells was not happy with the decision, but accepts that he has only himself to blame. He’ll return to the Iowa rotation and hopefully have more success there than he had in Chicago or in his first few starts at Iowa.
Maine was solid in his 5.2 innings of work (1.59 ERA, 0.529 WHIP), but, for whatever reason, the front office or Dale Sveum just doesn’t like him (that’s unfair – he’s got options left, so the move was the most logical). He struck out 10, but he did walk two and hit two batters. Control has always been an issue for Maine, so I guess he’ll go back to Iowa and keep working on it.