The Marlins Series

The Cubs managed to lose two out of three to the Marlins, a genuinely awful team that has seen its best pitcher lost for the season, its closer demoted to AA, and its manager fired and replaced by the GM, for whom they have performed worse, if possible, than they did with the first guy.

Anyway, the Cubs have not been playing all that well lately.  I cannot remember when they last won a series.  Mostly their failures have been the result of an inconsistent bullpen and sloppy play.  Today and yesterday, it was sloppy and careless play.  A lot of the sloppy play can be laid at the door of Starlin Castro.

Earlier this year, when the Cubs played the Mets and there was a lot of trade talk, I took the position that the Cubs are probably better off hanging on to Castro.  Now, I am not so sure.  There have been a bunch of articles about this subject lately, the objective ones coming down pretty much on the side of writing him off.  Castro is never going to be an on-base machine, and he is just not suited to batting any higher than sixth in the lineup.  The real failure is on defense.  Castro has been the regular shortstop for six years now and he shows no real signs of the maturity or professionalism that one would expect of a six-year veteran with above-average range.  In short, he still plays like a rookie.

Rumor has it the Cubs will bring up Baez and use him to DH with an occasional start in the field when they play a bunch of inter-league games on the road later this month.  Baez is hot in AAA, though he is still striking out at lot.  If he is not an absolute embarrassment, as he was last season, Castro's days might be numbered.  I'm not sure the Cubs could not get along with LaStella at second base and Russell at short in a pinch, though LaStella seems to be a slow healer and is still on the DL.

Speaking of the DL, Soler has hurt his ankle and gone to the DL.  This is going to hurt the team a lot.  Soler is not an easy out and he plays good defense in right field.  Lake is likely to get most of the starts there in his absence.  He can hit a bit when he shows discipline, but he is not really a very good outfielder at all.

As another aside, I notice the Mariners traded Welington Castillo to Arizona in a six-player deal that saw them pick up Mark Trumbo.  Probably a plus for Seattle and a plus for Castillo as well, since he is likely to get some regular playing time with the D-backs.