More pitching weirdness and the eternal struggle for the DH

In my last Cubs post, I mentioned how odd it was that Luis Vizciano, who the Cubs had signed to a $3.5 million deal in the offseason, was designated for assignment in order to call up Jeff Samardjia from AAA. The bullpen was going through quite a rough patch at that point--and really still hasn't perfromed as well as one would like--so its easy to see why Lou Pinella and Jim Hendry would want to make a change, but it certainly seemed like a drastic one, especially considering that the team supposedly signed Aaron Miles and let go of Mark DeRosa because of money issues. The difference between Miles and DeRosa, I believe, is only a few million dollars, and here we see the Cubs essentially paying Vizciano 3 1/2 million bucks to basically pitch for two weeks (two weeks in which, for the record, his ERA was 0.00, although I believe he let in some inherited runners). Letting go of DeRosa looks more and more confounding.

Vizciano was officially relased on Monday (bottom of this story), so he's not coming back. The thing is, since getting called up, Samardija has been knocked around quite a bit, and he has now been sent back down again in favor of Chad Fox. I don't think Vizciano was going to have a zero ERA all year. Throughout his career, he's been kind of an average reliever, probably a little better than what you'd consider "replacement level," so I wasn't expecting amazing things about him. However, I have sincere doubts that Chad Fox, who is now 38 and whose career was pretty much over due to a series of major injuries before he got an opportunity to come back with the Cubs, is going to be any better. I'm not sure if the Cubs badly overestimated how much Samardija was ready for the majors or what, but they really shouldn't have put themselves in a position where you're paying a guy $3.5 million to do nothing and then replacing him on the roster with an old, debilitated Chad Fox. Vizciano was never going to be a regular back-of-the-bullpen guy or anything, so maybe this isn't really a huge crisis, but it does look pretty silly on the Cubs' part.

Update: Since I first starting writing this on Thursday (its now Monday), Chad Fox has now been put on the DL with his career once again in jeopardy. In 2 appearances he had a 135.00 ERA. See why this was a bad idea?

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Meanwhile, something which has caused a major freakout amongst Cubs nation has been the injury to Carlos Zambrano, who is going to be out for at least a couple of weeks after pulling his hamstring running out a bunt. Zambrano was safe on the play, and even though he had to be pinch-run for, his run was one of 4 driven in on a tie-breaking Derrek Lee grand slam later that inning. The Cubs ended up winning the game 6-4. In spite of this, starting immediately after the game, a faction of Cubs fans started blaming Zambrano for getting hurt, dreaming up an unwritten rule of baseball that pitchers should never try to bunt for a hit because of the risk of injury. The whole idea of this is pretty bizarre to me. Of course, running out a bunt has the potential for injury, but so does a lot of stuff in baseball. If Zambrano would've swung away on that at-bat and hit a grounder that one of the opposing infielders had to make a diving play to keep in the infield and then throw to first from his knees, is he not supposed to run that out either? If he's in the field, and Derrek Lee has to dive to make a play on a sharply hit ball down the foul line, should Zambrano not run full-out to get over to cover first base?

The point is, the line drawn by fans here as when its not right to "try" on a play, is totally arbitrary. There are many valid criticisms of Zambrano, like his famous temper on the mound that once boiled over into a fist-fight with Michael Barrett, but one thing Zambrano's never been accused of, and for good reason, is not caring enough. This play should be no different. That he cares enough to try and leg out a well placed bunt-and succeed in doing so in an inning that eventually leads to a grand slam--should be celebrated, not criticized. You'll often hear it said that pitching is an inherently unnatural act for the human body. When you consider how many pitchers at some point need major surgery because of a ligiment tear in their elbow or something of that ilk, or see pitchers who get hurt and then lose about 5 miles off of their fastball when they come back and are never really the same pitcher, its easy to believe that statement.

Weirder still, is this Phil Rogers column using the Zambrano injury as evidence that the NL needs to adopt the DH. It seems like most everyone who follows baseball has strong opinions on the DH, one way or another. Either they advocate both leagues using it or both leagues not using it. Having one league use it and one league not seems to bother a lot of people. Personally, its never really bothered me. Its one of the things that makes baseball unique to other team sports, along with each ballpark having its own dimensions. Why should ballpark dimensions be different from place to place but not DH rules? If you believe the MLB needs to have "the standard set of rules that exists in the NFL, NBA and NHL," shouldn't the playing field dimensions always be the same? I like the fact that you can watch two different styles of play on any given night, especially in Chicago with both the Cubs and White Sox on local TV. Even if you're like Rogers, however, and really want the DH implemented, I'm not sure how the Zambrano injury really ties into that all that much. As I already wrote, pitchers can get hurt doing most anything on the field, as can any other player. I'm not sure how you can eliminate pitchers batting and say "Okay, now we've ensured that we've gotten rid of all the pitching injuries that weren't really supposed to have happened." And how about telling Micah Owings that pitchers shouldn't hit.