What’s Next for Randy Wells? And Other Bullets

Jun 27, 2012

The hangover from all things Rizzo sets in…

Randy Wells knows, as he always does, that there isn’t much he can say in defense of his terrible start last night. “I continue to make some dumb pitches that are getting into bad counts,” he said after the game, according to the Tribune. “Then I have to work that much harder to squeeze by innings. It’s easy to sit here and dwell on the negatives. Obviously it wasn’t a good start. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. But we scratched out a win …. I’m not going to sit here and beat myself up and dwell on the negatives. It’s pretty obvious whenever you walk four guys, or walk the pitcher trying to sacrifice, [you’re] just trying to do too much and be too fine and not trusting your stuff.”

I’ll get shredded for saying it, but I feel bad for Wells. He’s a guy without overwhelming talent, who worked hard for a looooong time in the minors, finally broke into the bigs, and pleasantly surprised for a couple years. And now, despite his best efforts, he’s fallen on his face, thanks in large part to a forearm injury last year that sapped his velocity (and maybe his control). He doesn’t seem like a bad guy to me, and I can’t help but feel a little bummed for him. Where does he go from here? He could head back to Iowa to start, as the Cubs *could* still use him in the rotation in the second half if they deal Ryan Dempster and Matt Garza. Or he could slide into the bullpen and try to make a permanent transition there.

Dale Sveum says that the Cubs will figure out what they want to do with that spot in the rotation going forward. Ryan Dempster is expected to miss at least one more start, so someone will have to pitch in four days. It probably won’t be Wells. The Cubs could use the off-day to go with four starters, could call on someone like Casey Coleman to make a spot start, or, if they wanted to make a roster move, could bring up Chris Volstad. You’ll be able to tell if that’s coming if the Iowa Cubs shuffle their rotation this week, because Volstad isn’t really on the same schedule as Wells was.

Boyish looking Anthony Rizzo on his debut last night: “It was awesome. My first thought coming here was sliding that green door open like ‘Rookie of the Year,’ the movie. I didn’t see that. I got lost coming in. But it was a lot of fun today.” Swell. Best part? When ‘Rookie of the Year’ came out, Rizzo was three years old.

Starlin Castro likes the idea of he and Anthony Rizzo being “franchise players” for years to come. So do we, Starlin. So do we.

Jed Hoyer was asked the service time question about Rizzo’s promotion, and naturally, he said the decision of when to promote Rizzo was more about getting him a half year in AAA this year (after he got a half year in AAA last year). Obviously that’s not the whole story, but it’s really not a big deal. The Cubs did the right thing for the Cubs, and it didn’t hurt Rizzo’s development. Win, win.

A downer of a quote from Ian Stewart, who’s on the DL with serious wrist soreness, and who just received a theoretically helpful cortisone injection: “No, I am not ready yet for [rehab]. We have to get through soft toss and hit on the field first, then we can go from there. But this has weighed on me mentally because I really haven’t got any relief from the injections I have had.” That definitely doesn’t sound like someone who’s even remotely close to returning.

The Cubs are not optimistic that they’ll be able to recoup any money from the fact that Marlon Byrd, whom they traded to the Red Sox while eating almost all of his 2012 salary, was suspended for 50 games after testing positive for a banned substance. Jed Hoyer says the Cubs will do some digging, but his sense is that, because Byrd was released, he received his salary as “termination pay,” and that can’t be recouped from a free agent. So, in a way, if you’re looking for another reason to hate on the Red Sox, they may have just cost the Cubs a couple million bucks.

The MLBullets at BCB note Aroldis Chapman doing somersaults off the mound to celebrate a save against the Brewers.

written by

Brett Taylor

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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