Is Anthony Rizzo ready for his promotion to Cubs...?
The main question on every Cubs fans' mind these days is this? When will Anthony Rizzo be promoted from Triple-A Iowa?? Supposedly, the 22-year old Rizzo will make his first appearance in a Chicago Cubs uniform for Tuesday night's home game vs. the New York Mets. That's the rumor anyways.
I hate that fans think that he is THE answer to all the Cubs' problems at the plate and in the field. We haven't even see him in action yet at the Major League level and fan and media are already assuming that he'll be a savior and saving grace for Northsiders.
Yes, he is hitting .349 with 23 home runs and 62 RBIs in 68 games for the Cubs' triple-A Iowa Cubs. The young Cubbie prospect also has 18 doubles, a couple, scored 48 runs and has 88 hits in those 68 games so far this season. The one thing that puzzles me is that Rizzo has struck out 51 times in his 252 at-bats (20%). It's obvious that he's a great hitter at the triple-A level and anywhere else he's played in the minor leagues, but will he be able to adjust quickly to major league pitching or will he continue to strike out 20-25% of the time, like Adam Dunn (White Sox) and Mark Reynolds (Orioles) have done in their recent pasts?
I like to think that I'm quite the optimist about a lot of things in life. I'm giving Rizzo a pretty open window of opportunity when he does get the call-up from Iowa. He's the most anticipated prospect to get called-up probably since Mark Prior made his first appearance after being drafted in 2001 by the Cubs out of USC. He'll have a tremendous amount of pressure on him as soon as his move to Chicago happens. At least he won't have to worry about his manager killing his throwing arm like Dusty Baker did over the years to Mark Prior and Kerry Wood.
Cubs manager Dale Sveum has tweaked his lineup in recent weeks just to get a feel of where Rizzo would fit once he was called up. Moving David DeJesus to CF to play Bryan LaHair in RF to keep both their bats and gloves on the field once Rizzo joins the team is just one move that will benefit them in the long run. DeJesus started in CF today (Sunday), Reed Johnson patrolling the turf out in RF and Jeff Baker took to the infield dirt at 1B. Joe Mather got the start at 3B, but the hot corner has been shared by a handful of Cubs this season. It's pretty obvious that they're missing the bat and glove of Aramis Ramirez, now in Milwaukee, at third base. But, since he didn't want to accept a one-year deal worth 16-18 million, he took a deal from the Brewers where he's getting paid like he wanted.
It's a really tough task for Cubs president Theo Epstein and General Manager Jed Hoyer to try to convert the Chicago Cubs into winners as quick as their beloved fans would like. We all know that this kind of thing doesn't happen overnight, but we would at least like to see a valiant effort out of them as management to give the Cubs their best foot forward and not make this fully a "rebuilding" year and consider it a "reloading" act. If only it were that easy.
Pitching, that's another set of woes...
There really isn't one pitcher in the rotationt that can be considered an ace pitcher on the Cubs' staff. Let's be honest, their struggling across the board. With the team at 24-48 overall, it's tough to peg exactly which arm isn't doing it for the rotation. They're all guilty of having bad outings, but things are just getting worse. Here's a look at what the arms that have been in the starting rotation have done so far...
Jeff Samardzija 5-6, 4.34 ERA, 84 K's
Matt Garza 3-6, 4.07 ERA, 72 K's
Paul Maholm 4-6, 5.38 ERA, 49 K's
Travis Wood 1-3, 8.31 ERA, 29 K's
Randy Wells 1-2, 4.91 ERA, 11 K's
Ryan Dempster 3-3, 2.11 ERA, 66 K's (currently on Disabled List)
Chris Volstad 0-6, 7.46 ERA, 24 K's (currently at triple-A Iowa Cubs)
The bullpen is having its struggles as well, but what's new? James Russell, Shawn Camp, Casey Coleman, Jair Asencio, Scott Maine, Manny Corpas and Carlos Marmol are the make up of the current bullpen, but they've had help from others that are either on the DL, have been demoted or retired like Kerry Wood has already this season. This group of late-inning workers has taken its fair share of lumps in the first half of the season and it's turned them into a "save by committee" kind of bullpen.
James Russell 2-0, 2.53 ERA, 26 K's (1 save)
Shawn Camp 2-4, 3.29 ERA, 31 K's (1 save)
Scott Maine 0-1, 8.68 ERA, 15 K's
Carlos Marmol 1-2, 5.85 ERA, 23 K's (4 saves)
Jair Asencio 0-0, 3.00 ERA, 3 K's
Casey Coleman 0-1, 4.50 ERA, 10 K's
Manny Corpas 0-0, 0.93 ERA, 7 K's
Other bullpen contributors...
Rafael Dolis 2-4, 5.68 ERA, 11 K's (4 saves)
Michael Bowden 0-0, 7.45 ERA, 8 K's
Luis Castillo 0-1, 7.04 ERA, 6 K's
Rodrigo Lopez 0-1, 5.68 ERA, 2 K's
Kerry Wood 0-2, 8.31 ERA, 6 K's (has retired)
Only time will tell on how long it takes for the Cubs' pitching arms to recover and try to salvage something out of this dreadful 2012 season. The Cubs will get on some sort of hot streak and make a little something of this down year.
Getting swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks on the road this weekend, the Cubs head home to face the New York Mets starting Monday. It's time to turn things around. There are 90 games (24-48) left in the regular season and still a lot of room to make improvements. It all depends on what the front office does to help improve things on the field. Transactions have to be made. Possibly trading for a starting pitcher and/or relief pitcher. Promoting Anthony Rizzo to join the big league team from Iowa for a bat boost and depth in the field. The fans need something to get excited about and I'm hoping it's soon.
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