After today's outing, Marmol is now projected to pitch 107 innings in 2008. Discuss.

Does that include World Series innings?

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Does that include his rehab starts in the minors after his injury?

Dr Ken - No. Since his arm will fall off in early october, I figured I didn't have to project past Game 162.

stop it Harry okay lets go with the flow

early on he threw more 2 inning stints, i think now that howry seems to be throwing better, it might relieve some of the pressure on marmol, and he might be used more exclusively as an 8th inning man. with howrys and weurtzs struggles, and eyre not being available, it turned out to be a very smart move to have wood close and allow marmol to be available to hold down the fort with many 2 inning appearances when needed.

the bullpen is looking deeper and deeper every day it seems.

Lou was just talking about giving Marmol more time off and not using him for more than 1 inning as often as he has been in the early season. After the 8th inning today, where he struck out the side, it might have been tempting to let him finish the game. But Lou got Kerry to finish it off, so he stayed true to his word. I am confident that Lou will be monitoring him more closely the rest of the season to insure that he is tip top for the playoff run. Lou is very good at looking at the big picture, unlike Dusty, who surely would ruin the guy. They are gonna want him at his best when:
THE CUBS END THE WAIT IN 2008!!!

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Marmol is a converted catcher. His arm has very little mileage on it.
Lou is going to see to it his arm falls off eventually.

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If Wood continues this pattern of heart-attack saves, Marmol will be closing by September. When the games get "must have", there won't be as much tolerance for mistakes and Wood doesn't seem to be getting it done. I'd love it if he did but when push comes to shove I think Lou might go to Marmol for the closer and his inning load will decrease.

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i could not disagree more with this post. i say wood is doing a pretty good job at this point, and there shouldnt be any talk of replacing him at all. in his last 10 appearances, he has given up a total of 8 hits, 3 walks and 2 earned runs in 10.2 innings. his era has dropped from 4 to 3 in the last 2 weeks. he has had some blown saves, but i would in no way call him a "heart attack" pitcher. he either comes in and blows people away and has a 10 pitch inning, or he walks or hits that first man, and they sac bunt him over and he scores on a single. he is keeping the ball in the park, not walking people, and not giving up many hits. and he certainly has not giving up any big innings and left games with the bases loaded and less than 2 outs. i cant see at all how he can be classified over all as "not getting the job done". he is getting better and better as the year goes on. the closer situation is a total non-issue right now, not even on the radar.

1 or 2 semi-reliable arms with one dominant arm in the bullpen will not win you a playoff series, much less a World Series.

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I think the staff is a bit better than 1-2 "semi-reliable" arms. The bullpen has been fine pretty much the whole way through. Lilly had pitched well again before yesterday.

More importantly, they've beaten good teams. They swept the Mets, Diamondbacks, and Dodgers- all at home, to be sure, but still impressive.

Finally, Frank, if you're going to play the "why are there so many stupid Cubs/Sox arguments" card, it'd help if you didn't act like such a throbbing dickhole at every given opportunity when discussing the Cubs. At the very least, you've lost all claim to the high ground.

The latter. I was not in the "blame Dusty" camp when it came to Prior and Wood. You have to do what you have to do to win.
Dusty had plenty deficiencies in handling a pitching staff, to be sure. Does the name Dave Veres ring a bell?

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Thats not true. Every starting pitcher you could count on more or less. How soon we forget how dominant that staff was in the playoffs.

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Nice to see Cotts with an effective outing today. Also a good outind for Wuertz. With Howry, Marmol and Wood solid and Eyre terriffic so far, the bullpen is looking better all the time. Pay no attention to the Sox fans posting here, trying to find fault with the team with the best record in Baseball. They just cant deal with the fact that: THE CUBS END THE WAIT IN 2008!!!

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My point is you cant say they had less. You can say in May of '05 you thought they had less, but they ended up having an awesome pitching staff that year.

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The Cubs bullpen is one of the strongest in the NL. Granted Wood's save percentage needs to be better, but of the 4 blown saves, three were one run leads and each time he gave up only one run (and the Cubs won two of those games). I think Wood will get better.

Marmol is the leagues most dominant set up man, and if Howry stays true to form (gets better as the season moves along) he is another reliable reliever. Wuertz is good, Eyre has pitched well since the middle of last season and if Cotts resembles anything like 2005 the bullpen will be excellent. Lieber has shown to be an effective long man.

I have my reservations about the starters. I think Hendry might need to make a trade for another starter. But who knows, maybe Gallagher has one of those surprising seasons where he performs better than anyone expected <cough> Mike Bielecki<cough>.

And remember at this point in '05 most Sox fans wanted Contreras gone and Garland, while off to a fine start, still had people wondering when the wheels would fall off, kind of like Dempster.

Garland won 18 games that year and was an All Star. Started 8-0 iirc. El Duque came out of the gate at like 6 or 7-1, something like that before injuries slowed him down. Contreras didn't lose from July on. People forget how well Freddy Garcia did in 2005 too, especially on the road and/or during daygames.

Dustin Hermanson racked up the quickest 30some saves you will see before his back gave out. Then they had Jenks who was hitting 99 and 100 on the gun regularly back then. Marte was actually very good in the first half of that season. Cotts and Politte were damn near unhittable. Ozzie had at least 3 just amazingly dominant arms in that pen throughout the 2005 season.

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Regardless you cant say the Cubs have a better staff this year. They dont.

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I'm not denying some of them had career years. I said that the Cubs pen has one great arm and that will not win a WS. You said the Sox in '05 had the same thing, which is totally false unless you were watching a different team than I was. Between Cotts, Politte, and Hermanson/Jenks, Ozzie had at least 3 dominant arms in that pen at any one time.

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I've yet to even mention career years or expectations in March of 2005. My point was and is that the Sox bullpen in 2005 was dominant, and full of very reliable arms.

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Nas you seem to be confusing "What we thought would happen" with "What did happen." Frank's right, the pitching staff was dominant front to back that year. Thats pretty much inarguable, yet you are trying to argue it under the premise we didnt see it coming. Like they say hindsight is 20/20. The fact is the staff was dominant that year and better than this year's cubs staff even if Dempster keeps up this pace. What we thought before the season is irrelevant.

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Perhaps, in my drinky-ness, I overstated my case a little. Wood has been very good of late. My point was this, however, Wood showed signs of shakiness, blowing about 3 saves in two weeks or so. Since then, he has righted the ship and if he continues to pitch as he has the last few weeks there will be no need for change.

But, if down the stretch, Wood begins to start blowing saves again, I think Lou will be pretty quick to stick Marmol in there. I love Wood, but if you had to get one out, I think most people would take Marmol over Wood. It isn't common to have your best reliever not be your closer. Wood has been good overall and as long as that continues, fine. But, things change.

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That Friday save was a huge one for Wood. After hitting the guy and then getting the save, may have been a good hurdle to clear. On another note, he has the best numbers of his career so far this season.

Put it on the board Frank!

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Taking things out of context is fun

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I agree. Context is important.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul