Edwin Jackson had one of his better starts last time out, but it still didn’t quite feel like a complete, beginning to end, good start. Maybe today’s the day. The righty lineup is back in today.

Game Info

Chicago Cubs (18-27) at Pittsburgh Pirates (28-18), 11:35 CT on CSN.

Game Thread and Series Preview

The Game Thread lives here. You should participate in the madness. And, of course, for those who aren’t into message board-style game threads, please feel free to use the comments on this post for your in-game commentary/outbursts.

The Series Preview for this series lives here.

Starting Pitchers

Edwin Jackson (1-6, 5.76 ERA, 2.19 K/BB)

versus

Jeanmar Gomez (2-0, 2.78 ERA, 1.36 K/BB)

Pittsburgh Pirates Lineup

1. Starling Marte, LF

2. Travis Snider, RF

3. Andrew McCutchen, CF

4. Garrett Jones, 1B

5. Neil Walker, 2B

6. Michael McKenry, C

7. Pedro Alvarez, 3B

8. Clint Barmes, SS

9. Jeanmar Gomez, P

Chicago Cubs Lineup

1. David DeJesus, CF

2. Starlin Castro, SS

3. Anthony Rizzo, 1B

4. Alfonso Soriano, LF

5. Nate Schierholtz, RF

6. Welington Castillo, C

7. Luis Valbuena, 3B

8. Darwin Barney, 2B

9. Edwin Jackson, P

• Ben Badler reports that the Cubs, among other teams, are interested in Marten Gasparini, a 15-year-old Italian shortstop who may be Europe’s best prospect ever. He’s eligible to sign when the next international signing period opens in July, and he’s expected to get a signing bonus over $1 million. This is big news for baseball, in general, as it has never really made great inroads into Europe (the most talented kids grow up playing other things).
• Tim Dierkes at MLBTR looked through the trade market for lefty relievers, and, among the names explored, he listed James Russell as potentially the best option on the market. His age, effectiveness, and contract situation all make him highly desirable, which will be something for the Cubs to consider as they rebuild. On the other hand, those are all reasons that the Cubs may want to keep him.
• And in Tim’s chat, he believes that a healthy, effective Matt Garza could net a top 100 prospect at the deadline.
• Bruce Levine chatted at ESPNChicago, and … (1) Bruce suggests the Cubs and Ian Stewart are in a standoff right now, where the Cubs are hoping that his AAA benching will eventually force him to ask for his release (but he’s very unlikely to do it because he’d lose his contract); (2) Bruce believes the Cubs will be reluctant to focus big money or trade pieces on power arm type pitchers (the question was about David Price); (3) because the big-time prospect return isn’t going to be on the table for Matt Garza, the best case scenario for the Cubs is a short-term extension; and (4) Bruce has heard that Scott Baker might start pitching off of the mound again in June.
• It is “unlikely” that the Padres will trade Chase Headley this season, even though they likely won’t be able to sign him to an extension. If they can’t come to an extension in November, they could then shop him in the offseason, or perhaps at the next trade deadline. Headley is a free agent after 2014.
• Nick Cafardo lists the Red Sox, Rangers, A’s, and Yankees as among the teams interested in Masahiro Tanaka, the possible next Japanese ace to be posted this offseason. No mention of the Cubs, but, if the 24-year-old is posted, you’ve got to believe the Cubs will at least be in the conversation. The Dodgers, too.
• Patrick Mooney talked to Ryan Dempster about the trade and the non-trade last year, and Dempster shares some insight into his decision-making process throughout the Summer. Dempster suggests he was willing to stick around with the Cubs on a cheap, two-year deal, but the Cubs weren’t interested.
• It’s early, but keep an eye on whether Cliff Lee becomes available this year (Jon Heyman discusses that possibility here), and whether the Blue Jays become sellers with guys like Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion (which Nick Cafardo mentioned in the article above). No, not because the Cubs would necessarily have interest in any of those players, but because their presence on the trade market could impact the Cubs’ bargaining position as they try to sell lesser pieces.
• FanGraphs looks at what an albatross the Andre Ethier extension has quickly become, and how desperate the Dodgers might be to unload him. The Cubs should not be interested, regardless of how much money the Dodgers eat.
• Don’t forget to sign up for the BN Fantasy Contest, folks. It’s free, quick, easy, and comes with a $300 prize pool. The full details are here.

President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein, General Manager Jed Hoyer, Scouting and Player Development Chief Jason McLeod, and Amateur Scouting Director Jaron Madison were all at the University of Oklahoma yesterday to meet with prospective first round pick Jonathan Gray, per Cubs.com. The big Sooner pitcher could be the number one or number two pick in this year’s draft, which begins June 6, and very few believe there’s even a chance he slips to number three. That’s obviously important to the Cubs, since they pick second.

In that regard, to find the Cubs visiting Gray with the top men in the front office should be no surprise. It doesn’t mean the Cubs are putting the full-court press on Gray – pre-Draft deals are not permitted (technically) – or that they expect he’ll necessarily be their pick. Instead, I’d imagine that they’re doing the final stages of due diligence on a guy that could legitimately be their pick. Indeed, I’d expect similar visits to Stanford righty Mark Appel, and maybe San Diego third baseman Kris Bryant.

The Cubs’ number two overall pick of is of critical import to the long-term rebuilding process, and they can’t afford to whiff. To that end, they’re going to make sure they know everything they possibly can about any player they consider selecting.

That said, the fact that the Cubs are making this kind of visit to see Gray this close to the Draft confirms that he could be the guy, if he’s still on the board at number two. Not that the Cubs’ interest at this point was a secret or in doubt.

• So, why did the Cubs designate Michael Bowden for assignment on Tuesday if they knew Shawn Camp had a toe injury on Sunday (the Cubs put Camp on the disabled list yesterday, a day after he blew Tuesday’s game)? Because the Cubs didn’t know Camp had a toe injury. Er, what? Actually, the Cubs didn’t know the extent of Camp’s toe injury until Wednesday, when Camp explained the severity. Apparently he’d been dealing with the injury for a month, and only just started getting treatment on Sunday. The Cubs felt he could pitch through it. I can understand all of that, and it certainly explains why things played out as they did, even if it doesn’t justify anything. Given Camp’s performance – including decreased velocity – it still seems like it would have been perfectly reasonable and laudable to DL Camp on Tuesday rather than DFA’ing Bowden. Dale Sveum even admitted that, had they known about the severity of Camp’s injury on Tuesday, they would have DL’d him and kept Bowden. In other words, Camp may have cost Bowden his job (not that virtually every other athlete wouldn’t have tried to play through the same injury).
• Let’s keep in mind, too: if the Cubs absolutely loved Bowden, they would have figured out another route on Tuesday. So, even if Camp played a role, we can’t ignore that the Cubs chose to risk losing Bowden. That’s telling.
• Jesse Rogers notes that the Cubs are just 4-10 when facing left-handed starters this year, which, well, shouldn’t surprise you too much when you think about how the right-handed sides of the platoons have been faring.
• Reliever Chang-Yong Lim, 36, whom the Cubs signed this offseason and who is recovering from a second Tommy John surgery, could be ready to join the Cubs as soon as mid-July (just one year after his surgery), according to his agent. The Cubs have control over Lim through 2014, so whatever he shows this year is really more of an audition than anything else.
• Patrick Mooney ponders how long the Cubs will have Jeff Samardzija and Matt Garza as a 1-2 at the top of the rotation.
• Cubs pitchers, collectively, are tied for the team lead in RBI this month.
• Dave Cameron writes about the Mariners’ needs for changes, which, at first blush has no relevance to the Cubs. But, reading the piece, I think you’ll see the applicability and the interesting lessons therein. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that, right now, the rebuilding plan remains the best approach for the Cubs, given the state of the organization. (h/t to Danny)

Round Two, on the other hand, is where the amateur scouts will really start to earn their paychecks. The Cubs second round pick last year, Duane Underwood, did not come until pick number 67. That actually means last year’s first supplemental pick (Pierce Johnson, No. 43) is probably a better comparison for the Cubs second round pick this year (No. 41). And just like they did with Johnson, I expect the Cubs to draft a college pitcher in this slot.

Which one? That gets harder. There will be a lot to choose from. If we use Baseball America’s Top 250 draft prospects as a guideline you will quickly see what I mean. Because of the high level of uncertainty in baseball’s amateur draft, we need to look at a wide range of players for candidates who could be on the board at No. 41. If we consider everyone from No. 31 to No. 51 on that list, we have a catch of potential draftees that includes 12 college pitchers. That rich a crop in the range of the Cubs second round pick just reinforces my suspicion that college arm is the direction the Cubs will be taking with that pick.

As for Round Three? That gets trickier still. With the possible exception of Byant in the first round I think the Cubs will call a steady string of pitcher names through the early rounds of the draft. I suspect Round Three will go to the best high school arm on the board, but another college arm would not be too surprising.  And you never know, they might surprise us with a bat in that slot. That’s part of the beauty of the draft. It’s like Christmas every round.

Scores From Yesterday

Iowa – Iowa lost 9-4.
Tennessee – The Smokies were off on Wednesday.
Daytona – Daytona scored six times in the first three innings and coasted to an 8-4 win.
Kane County – Three errors did not help as Kane County was clobbered 9-2.

Performances of Note

• [Iowa] Brian Bogusevic homered for the third straight game, and he also walked three times. Right now he is about as hot as it is possible to be.
• [Iowa] Brett Jackson tripled (his third), but he also struck out twice. That is only his second multi-strike out game in a week. After 24 Ks in 19 games in April he has just 10 in 13 games in May. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a transformation like this (assuming he can keep it up, of course).
• [Iowa] Casey Coleman padded his resume a bit with three innings of two hit relief.
• [Daytona] Javier Baez doubled. Jorge Soler singled and walked twice. Neither struck out.
• [Daytona] John Andreoli had a three hit game for the Cubs. Dustin Geiger doubled as part of his two hit outing.
• [Kane County] The long awaited Albert Almora Kane County debut did not disappoint. Almora finished 3 for 4 with a double.
• [Kane County] Gioskar Amaya tripled again. That is his second in three games. Last year triples were a big part of his game (he finished with 12). He is up to four already this season.

Other News

• Is Bogusevic for real, or is he another LaHair style illusion? You can make a strong case for this being a bit of an illusion. Even though his walk rate (14.5%) and strikeout rate (17.6%) are both quite good, and despite his OPS of 1.064 being the highest he has posted since he spent part of the 2008 season in the Texas League, there is one number that just sticks out. Bogusevic currently has a BABIP of .442. That is over a hundred points higher than his career average. The odds of him maintaining this level of production is slim to none. Even so, I think the Cubs could do a lot worse than Bogusevic as a platoon guy or fourth outfielder in Chicago. He should get that chance when the Cubs start dealing outfielders later this summer.
• The Tennessee Smokies are hosting a Peanut Free night at Smokies Park tonight. I think this is one of the smartest promotions in the minors. Peanut allergies are no joke, but for at least one night those who aren’t too allergic can hopefully relax a little in the stadium. Those in attendance should get to see Kyle Hendricks pitch. Lately he has been one of the pitchers to watch.
• Rock Shoulders is hitting just .219 in May, but thanks in part to a high walk rate he still has an OPS of .787 for the month. He walked twice in this game, and five times over his last two contests.

The epitaph for the evening will stand as the third inning, in which the Cubs loaded the bases with nobody out … and failed to score a run. The 9th inning included the obligatory tease (two on, one out).

Full box.

Game Info

Chicago Cubs (18-26) at Pittsburgh Pirates (27-18), 6:05 CT on WGN.

Game Thread and Series Preview

The Game Thread lives here. You should participate in the madness. And, of course, for those who aren’t into message board-style game threads, please feel free to use the comments on this post for your in-game commentary/outbursts.

The Series Preview for this series lives here.

Game Tickets

If you’re looking for Chicago Cubs tickets for this or another series, you can use that TiqIQ link there for the secondary market. There are also some available on Cubs.com.

Starting Pitchers

Jeff Samardzija (2-5, 3.49 ERA, 3.05 K/BB)

versus

Francisco Liriano (2-0, 1.64 ERA, 3.20 K/BB)

Pittsburgh Pirates Lineup

1. Starling Marte, LF

2. Travis Snider, RF

3. Andrew McCutchen, CF

4. Garrett Jones, 1B

5. Neil Walker, 2B

6. Russell Martin, C

7. Pedro Alvarez, 3B

8. Jody Mercer, SS

9. Francisco Liriano, P

Chicago Cubs Lineup

1. Julio Borbon, CF

2. Starlin Castro, SS

3. Anthony Rizzo, 1B

4. Alfonso Soriano, LF

5. Scott Hairston, RF

6. Welington Castillo, C

7. Cody Ransom, 3B

8. Darwin Barney, 2B

9. Jeff Samardzija, P

• Albert Pujols chased the money. I certainly don’t blame him for it, but he left behind the people of St. Louis, where he’d been the kind of heralded legend they’d not seen since Stan Musial, in favor of a touch more money in Anaheim. Hey, what’s $20 million between friends, right? It has not been a successful move so far for the 33-year-old, whose 2012 season was unrecognizable by Pujols standards, and whose 2013 season is downright bad (.241/.314/.418). Joe Posnanski writes that the story is much worse than the struggles. The story is the decline into irrelevance. Who talks about Pujols anymore? Who cares when he steps up to the plate? Isn’t it crazy to be able to say those things about Albert Pujols? I am trained to hate Pujols by virtue of the Cardinals thing, but even I find his swift descent into obscurity really sad.
• Also kind of sad: Josh Hamilton is hitting .216/.271/.351 in his first year with the Angels, who are expensive and flailing. They have become only the latest example of why buying up a bunch of free agents – even the best of the best available – can fail spectacularly. And the real problem is, when that approach fails, as it sometimes does, your organization will feel the pain for a long, long time.
• Barry Bonds says that Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter in baseball (duh), but he’s no Barry Bonds (also duh, but … who says that kind of thing? Answer: Barry Bonds). My favorite paragraph in that Bob Nightengale piece is this one, which comes after Bonds says that Cabrera doesn’t have Bonds’ numbers: “Cabrera broke into the big leagues in 2003 when Bonds was winning his sixth MVP award. He’s still just 30 years old. He leads Bonds in every Triple Crown category at the same age, hitting .320 with 332 homers and 1,170 RBI. Bonds had a career .285 batting average with 259 homers and 760 RBI at the same age.” Right … but I have a suspicion that Cabrera won’t match the 1.262 OPS that Bonds somehow managed to put up from age 36 to 42.
• Rob Neyer digs into the ever-changing landscape of pitch counts. The predicate for his piece is Ron Washington’s recent decision to allow Yu Darvish to throw 130 pitches – a plateau almost never reached anymore – in a game against the Tigers that the Rangers were winning comfortably. I know that the science of pitch counts remains very much “science” rather than science, but I fall very, very far on the conservative spectrum when it comes to pitcher usage. Perhaps the 2000s era Cubs have burned me for good, that being a formative stage in my baseball-reading-and-covering development. There are times, and pitchers, where I would sanction letting a guy go well over 100 pitches. But when your team has a big lead, to me, there’s just no excuse. Is the incremental difference between that starter and the bullpen really worth any additional risk at all, however small?
• MLB hopes to have expanded instant replay in 2014 – which could include just about everything short of balls and strikes – but it’s a slow process of approvals and implementation. I feel like a bad baseball fan for not having a stronger opinion on instant replay, since it seems to really get some folks riled up. But I just don’t have it in me. When football expanded instant replay, I was totally in favor of it. Get the call right. Why can’t I summon that same feeling with respect to baseball? Even when the Cubs get screwed, I just accept that as part of the game. Maybe it’s the 162-game season? Maybe I feel like it’s more likely to even out in baseball than in football? Yeah, that’s probably it. Doesn’t mean I’m right, obviously.
• A fascinating article on the rapid increase of pronounced defensive shifts in baseball. There is some data to suggest that the decline in offense we’ve seen over the past half decade could be thanks in part to increased shifting. Check out the numbers on the right side of the article, and note the consistently decreasing average BABIP from year to year. If that’s not due to shifting, I don’t know how else to explain it. (h/t to BN’er Josh, whose email to me about this article was aptly titled “Shifting My Pants”).
• If you’ve been watching the Dodgers disintegrate from a distance, you’ll appreciate manager Don Mattingly’s comments today, collected by Bill Plunkett. The gist? The Dodgers have poorly constructed roster that was designed around BUY-ALL-THE-PLAYERS, and they are seriously lacking in “grit.”
• More than you ever wanted to know about pitch-framing.
• If you’re going to celebrate a game-tying or winning home run immediately and all the way up the base line, make sure it’s a home run, and not a harmless fly ball that barely reaches the warning track.
• The New York Times with an awesome infographic on players on the disabled list, and the cost to their respective teams.
• This FanGraphs article is worth reading and all, but, really, I just can’t stop looking at another one of the greatest gifs of all-time:

And he’s getting one, in the form of a disabled list stint for an injured big toe. Maybe that has something to do with his recent woes.

But here’s where I get a bit miffed: the Cubs have known about the issue since this weekend. Camp reportedly got treatment for it on Sunday, and the treatment didn’t help.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Just yesterday, rather than do something with Shawn Camp (at the time, we were thinking release, but now we see that a DL stint was legitimately available), the Cubs DFA’d Michael Bowden to make room for Matt Garza. To be sure, Bowden has some issues, and the Cubs may have decided they didn’t want to keep him on the Major League roster anyway.

But … if there was even a tiny chance they wanted to keep him around, rather than trade or waive him, they had a golden opportunity here with Camp. They didn’t take it, and Camp gave up the decided grand slam last night. It’s frustrating, even if there’s a good explanation. I guess I’ll wait patiently for the announcement that Bowden has been traded for an interesting, upside prospect. If something like that happens during this DFA period (or if we learn that the Cubs were simply done with Bowden either way), I’ll assume that was always the plan, and we can resume thinking good things about the Cubs’ roster management at the margins.

In the interim, human shuttle Rafael Dolis has been called up to take Camp’s spot on the roster.

This Friday is our $300 one-day fantasy baseball contest (with a tasty prize pool of $300), and I just set my lineup (for now).

Normally I only tease you with a couple of my players. I mean, I don’t want you copying my entire brilliant strategy. But … I haven’t exactly done well in the last several of these, so I’m throwing caution to the wind. Behold, it’s the lineup that’s going to crush you on Friday:

I reserve the right to change this lineup as their performances change in the next couple days, as weather forecasts are updated, and as my gut tells me. I’m pretty pleased with the group, though the pitching decisions were quite difficult in this one. Of course, when you have the opportunity to pick players facing the Astros, that makes part of the decision easier.

I didn’t take any Cubs in this one (I think Scott Feldman was the only option), but I do like to include someone from the Cubs’ game just to keep things interesting. I don’t really think Jay Bruce is going to have a great game, nor do I particularly want him to hit a couple bombs off of Feldman. But now if he does, at least I get some points.

If you haven’t yet created your team or signed up for the contest, get on it. You’ve got until Friday evening when the games start. Full details on the contest here.