The Audition Process Continues and Other Bullets

Bad news for any ‘Dark Tower’ fans among you. After reviving the proposed three-movies-plus-TV-miniseries idea from Universal, Warner Brothers has decided to pass on the Ron Howard project. It’s not completely dead yet, but we’re running out of big money landing spots willing to take a chance on it.

  • Chris Rusin was solid in his first start in the big leagues, showing only a few jitters. “I was pretty nervous the first inning but after that I settle down and took it from there,” Rusin said. “I couldn’t get my secondary stuff over for a strike so that kind of put me in a hole,” Rusin said. “But I was able to throw some changeups to get them to swing out of the zone and get some ground balls.” All in all, it was solid, but obviously you’d like to see how a kid does on his third time through the order.
  • We won’t get a chance to see that until September at the earliest. As expected, Rusin will not stay in the rotation for now (his call-up was required because no starting pitcher was going to be available on normal rest yesterday thanks to the weekend doubleheader), but could return when rosters expand. Then the Cubs might go with a six-man rotation, which, like, whateves. Fine with me. In the interim, Rusin could pitch out of the bullpen, or could head to Iowa to make another start or two there.
  • Alex Hinshaw – the lefty reliever the Cubs snagged off of waivers from the Padres – is excited to be with the Cubs, and happy to have prior relationships with Justin Germano and Darwin Barney, which eases the transition. “I’d love to be able to be considered for something like that,” he said of the possibility of sticking long-term with the rebuilding Cubs, according to ESPNChicago. “Chicago is obviously a very historic franchise. Even when I played in Wrigley as a visitor it was always nostalgic for me to be able to touch the ivy and everything. Now I’m honored to be able to contribute to this organization for this year and hopefully for many years to come.”
  • More from Sveum on using this time of year as an evaluation period, knowing that the Cubs have Jeff Samardzija and Matt Garza in the rotation (probably) to begin 2013, but then a whole lot of question marks. But we have to remember (and Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have said this before) – relying too much on September stats to make decisions for the following season can be a tricky business. Given the number of teams out of contention, and the September call-ups, some games end up playing a lot like Spring Training. And you know what we think of Spring Training stats …
  • Dale Sveum has confirmed that both Jeff Beliveau and Adrian Cardenas, who were shipped out yesterday to make room for Chris Rusin and Alex Hinshaw, will be back up with the big club in September.
  • Don’t forget to follow BN on Twitter and “like” it on Facebook for all your hot and smokey BN action.
  • MLBullets at BCB look at the hilarious suggestion that Nick Swisher could match Jayson Werth’s 7-year, $126 million contract in free agency. The short version: no, no, no. Naw. No.
  • BN’er Aaron Vandermause took in the Peoria Chiefs game yesterday, and created a video of all four of Jorge Soler’s at bats, if you’d like to give them a look. Yesterday, at least, he saw a fair number of pitches, and seemed pretty comfortable batting with two strikes. Also, he doesn’t get cheated on his swings early in an at bat.
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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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