Posts tagged JimEdmonds at FanHouse

Quietly, without fuss or complaint, Kosuke Fukudome has become something of a liability in the Cubs' lineup. Where once he drew walk after walk, liner after liner -- where once he hit three home runs in the season opener, forever endearing himself to Cubs fans -- Fukudome is now struggling. In July, his .236/.306./.382 split was in stark contrast to his early-season performance, and his August (.125/.214/.167) hasn't gone any better.

Though Fukudome has largely escaped fan fury for his recent failures, they haven't gone unnoticed by Lou Piniella. Piniella needs to see more from Fukudome, or else:

The Cubs manager said if Fukudome didn't start hitting soon, he'd have to look at "other options" in right. "I just look at trying to put out lineups that produce runs, and we've got a couple guys that are swinging the bats, including Reed Johnson, that are not playing," Piniella said. "Sooner or later, I've got to give them opportunities."

By far, the problem with Fukudome isn't so much that he's not hitting -- it's that he's not walking anymore, either. The overriding value to Fukudome was supposed to be his J.D. Drew-like on-base ability, the kind of batters' eye that keeps him productive even during slumps. That hasn't happened. Instead, Fukudome's been bad in almost all facets except his right field defense, which remains strong. Still, he's been bad, and needs to get better. That this isn't a big deal is a testament to how popular Fukudome has been at Wrigley all year ... but that fandom can vanish quickly if production doesn't keep up.

In the meantime, Jim Edmonds is hitting well and is rapidly becoming a Cubbie favorite. Worlds colliding. Cats and dogs. Etc.

Jim Edmonds, you sly devil. We know you at least consider your past, all those fond memories of being a St. Louis Cardinal, of winning a World Series, of hitting 30+ home runs every year. They were your glory days, man! That's as good as life gets! You're not fooling anyone.

Deny them all you want, Jim. But we remember. If Nico Bellic couldn't escape his past, what makes you think you can?

With the Cardinals coming to Wrigley Field, it means a second reunion of St. Louis manager Tony La Russa and center fielder Jim Edmonds. "Tony who?" Edmonds said when asked if he had any thoughts about his former manager.

Any thoughts about playing your ex-teammates? "No, I don't," he replied.

That is harsh. Being a Cubs fan, I feel a need to support Jim Edmonds in his quest to tweak the Antichrist Tony La Russa, but it's sort of hard to pick someone to root for in this fight. Like, if Russia and China were to go to war, sure, it would be entertaining, but you don't really want either of them to have the satisfaction of winning. Or something like that.

Anyway, whatever the reason, Edmonds has proved himself still a valuable player this year, one the Cardinals could surely use in center. If the fued with La Russa is motivating him, so be it. Just keep hitting, Jim.

You'll recall that just three days ago, I was psyched about the Cubs/Brewers series this week as they battled for control of the National League and the NL Central. With one game separating the two teams and the Brewers on a tear, it seemed like the stage was being set for great things. The Cubs have used that stage to remind everyone how they got to the top of the division in the first place.

After a close game on Monday that the Cubs won mostly due to Brewer errors, the Cubs rolled to a 7-1 win in the Ben Sheets/Carlos Zambrano duel and then thumped the Crew again 7-2 last night behind Ryan Dempster. The great battle between these two teams has suddenly turned into a four-game Cubs' lead in the division and left the Brewers back in a tie with the Cardinals, who they seemingly disposed of last week after a four-game sweep.

Is there any one left that doesn't want to argue that the Cubs are overwhelming favorites in the National League right now? It's really hard to find a weak spot anywhere on the team. With Jim Edmonds killing the ball since his move to Wrigley, the Cubs have an above average hitter starting at every single position on the field (using OPS+ as the measuring stick). Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis are the weak spots in the rotation and they're not awful by any stretch of the imagination. The Cubs are going to be a very, very scary team in October this year.

It's hard to imagine a better way to kick off the mad dash to baseball's trade deadline than with the Brewers and Cubs pulling trades for big-name pitchers within two days of each other. Of course, those moves raise a pretty big question: who's the favorite to win the division now? Let's break it down.

Definitely not favorites: Pirates, Astros, and Reds. The Reds are young and exciting but at least a year away, the Pirates seem to be meandering down the right road but they're still way down the path in the wrong direction, and the Astros are a disaster area.

The Cardinals: This team perplexes me. By all accounts they shouldn't be very good, and yet they've still got the second best record in the NL and are ahead of the Brewers in the Wild Card standings. They probably won't join in the arms race with the Cubs and Brewers, but they get Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter back from the DL in pretty short fashion. Still, they're short on offense besides Albert Pujols and Ryan Ludwick, it's hard to know what to expect out of Carpenter after missing most of a season and a half, and Kyle Lohse is a prime candidate to turn into a pumpkin.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Chicago Cubs (52-35) at St. Louis Cardinals (49-39) - 3:55 PM ET

It's sad to see a friendship go south as apparently the one between Tony La Russa and Jim Edmonds has now that Edmonds is with the Cubs and La Russa is playing ultra-sensitive. But in reality, La Russa and Edmonds are mere players in the larger war that is Cubs vs. Cardinals, with first place on the line and growing ever so further away from the Cardinals. Today, Kyle Lohse is going to have to continue his 2008 magic (remember when nobody wanted Lohse? Yeah, well now he's 10-2) against Ted Lilly.

You might have noticed that tonight marked the first time since Jim Edmonds became a Cub that he played in St. Louis wearing blue and red. So Edmonds received the inevitable questions about coming back to St. Louis. What followed? War!

Miffed by Jim Edmonds' comments that he was happy to be with the Cubs and tired of talking about his past, La Russa said Friday he'd ignore the four-time All-Star in his first visit as a member of the team's biggest rival.

"I wouldn't clap or boo or anything," La Russa said before a three-game series matching the NL Central's top two teams. "He wants to put his Cardinal days behind him, so I think you've got to respect that, and just ignore him."

You're kidding me, right? Tony La Russa is getting huffy?

Edmonds said La Russa, his manager for the best eight seasons of his career, would do so at his peril. The two have always had a good relationship.

"If he ignores me, I'm going to punch him in the mouth," Edmonds joked. "I think he's trying to stir it up. He gets a little excited about this rivalry."

I think we have enough to promote "FanHouse Baseball Wrestlemania" here. Edmonds vs. La Russa can be the undercard to Chacon vs. Wade and Reyes vs. Hernandez. We need a women's match though ... ooh! Cynthia Rodriguez vs. Madonna! Quick, get Eric Bischoff on the phone.

On his second at-bat of the game tonight, Alfonso Soriano was beaned on the left wrist. ESPN just reported that he has a mildly displaced fracture of the fourth metacarpal. Translation: broken hand. He's reportedly out six weeks.

This is a blow to the Cubs, but hardly devastating. He's a stud and has been hitting as well as anyone in the everyday lineup, but the team is loaded with capable hitters and he's a defensive liability. They dealt without him for two weeks earlier in the season and played quite well, going 9-5.

For the Cubs, several guys will benefit playing-time wise. The options are plentiful thanks for the versatility of the bench and Mark DeRosa. Mike Fontenot or Ronny Cedeno can play second base while DeRosa shifts to LF. Micah Hoffpauir -- sure to get the call from triple-A -- will get some looks in LF as well. Finally, should Lou Pinella decide to stray from his CF platoon, Reed Johnson can play left while Jim Edmonds stays in center. There won't be an everyday lineup. Musical chairs is more like it.

A lot has been made of Ozzie Guillen's latest comments/rant/maniacal diatribe in which he said changes need to be made to the White Sox, and that he fully expected Kenny Williams to make some moves. Even if they involved firing him or his hitting coach, Greg Walker. As of now, nothing has happened.

There have been no trades. Nobody has been fired (sorry, Jay), and nobody has been called up from Triple-A. In fact, the only thing that's scheduled to happen at this point is a meeting between Guillen and Williams before the White Sox take on the Royals tonight at U.S. Cellular Field.

This will be more than the typical state-of-the-team session Williams and Guillen usually conduct in Guillen's office before each homestand. At stake is whether they can come to an agreement on their hitters' capabilities, even with the Sox in first place in the American League Central.

Personally, I don't get what the big deal is about Guillen's latest comments. People say he threw Williams under the bus, but I don't think he did anything close to it. Ozzie never said he thought that Kenny did a bad job of putting his team together, all he said was that the offense just isn't working right now, and that he thinks Williams will probably do something about it. Given Williams history as White Sox general manager, that's not exactly a stretch.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Florida Marlins (30-23) at Philadelphia Phillies (32-24) - 7:05 PM ET

Last night, the Phillies took over first place in the East over the surprising Marlins by giving them the proverbial thumping of 12-3. It's not that the Marlins have been that bad over this recent stretch ... they did sweep the Arizona Diamondbacks at home, after all. But the Phillies have been scorching hot during an 8-2 run which has seen Chase Utley make President George W. Bush look pretty smart.

Utley has 15 RBI's in his last five games, a stretch where Phillies scored 60 runs. That's the kind of steamrolling that an upstart team like the Marlins can really do nothing about. Starting today, with Ricky Nolasco going to the mound to face Cole Hamels, the Fish are going to have to start to figure out how to stay in this race, and not get discouraged over the fact that they're now out of the lead. With Philly, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Philly again coming up on the schedule, this is a key time for the Marlins.

It was really only a matter of time before Jim Edmonds hit horribly enough on the Cubs to rankle Lou Piniella. Today is that day:

"We need to see improvement with the bat, to be perfectly honest," Piniella said Wednesday. Only a day earlier, Piniella suggested Edmonds would be a big help to the Cubs "when and if he starts swinging the bat."

You think so, Lou?

Who could have expected this? Jim Edmonds hitting pretty much exactly how Jim Edmonds has hit over the past three years -- hmm. Perhaps if Lou had actually seen Edmonds play -- or taken a glance at his numbers -- in the past three years, he would have known that Edmonds is pretty much done offensively. No number of over-the-shoulder shaky defensive plays in center field is going to hid that fact. Good to see Lou coming around.