After starting out the home stand losing four of six, the Cubs came back to even things out at 5-5, besting the woeful Rockies in three of four games.
Those games were hard to watch. I mean it was difficult to imagine any circumstances under which either team might score or do something interesting.
Oddly enough, the Cubs came back take two out of three from the hot Dodgers in LA. They might have swept had they not allowed the useless Blake Parker to pitch a second inning of relief Saturday night. One conclusion from the recent stretch of games is that Kyle Hendricks is definitely a keeper.
As far as the trade deadline transactions, I was glad to see Bonafacio traded. I always thought he was both streaky and over-rated, especially as a lead-off hitter. The Cubs wound up trading away Samardzija, Hammel, Russell, Bonafacio, Barney, and a PTBNL for two struggling starters and three highly-rated prospects who are still a long way from the big leagues. One of the starters landed on the DL the day after he reported.
On the bright side, the Cubs are calling up Baez. Presumably to play 2B with Alcantara moving to CF. Also, after trading away roughly a dozen major league starters over the past three summers, Jed Hoyer announced that the team's top project over the winter was getting some major league pitchers, guys who are likely to cost big bucks, as Samardzija will when he becomes a free agent, or require the Cubs to trade away some serious prospects, but, hey, that's the way it is when you play Theo-ball.
The odd thing is that no one seems to notice the inherent contradictions in the rebuilding approach and that the one consistent principle is they are really cheap and really stubborn.
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