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Odds & Ends: Hill, Lowe, Renteria

By Nat Boyle [June 22, 2008 at 10:58am CST]

Some musings from the central divisions:

In this piece by Gordon Wittenmyer covering Carlos Zambrano's shoulder strain, the Cubs may be forced to shut down Rich Hill. Hill failed to get through the first inning for Triple-A Iowa start on Friday, recording 2 outs while giving up 6 ER and 4 BB, and the Cubs simply want to give him an extended mental break. This may turn up the flames even further on the Cubs pursuit of a front line starter.
For what it's worth, Jon Paul Morosi of the Detroit Free Press says Derek Lowe is unlikely to become a Tiger this season.
Will another AL club give up on Edgar Renteria after a year? In another piece, Morosi thinks Renteria could wind up staying with Detroit despite his $11MM club option and his batting average dropping over .060 points. Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski and Manager Jim Leyland both speak favorably of Renteria as a player and as a guy in the clubhouse. Still, possible free agent replacements do exist so this is worth monitoring.

By Nat Boyle

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Comments

Is pitching that much better in the AL tha renteria can't hang?

Posted by: joemorgan=#1 | June 22, 2008 at 11:38 AM

Wow. I'm not going to pile it on Hill anymore than I already have. (Although I will say this...Round 9 to Deke since Theriot is still playing great ball.) But it's discouraging to see him struggle so much. Two reasons: One, he obviously is no help to a club that could desparately use a guy to eat up some innings while Z's shoulder gets healthy. And two, he has absolutely no trade value now. But the Cubs shouldn't just give him away. He could bounce back and be a decent end-of-the-rotation pitcher. I think the Cubs should just 'hold' right now and wait. They're still winning games without Soriano and Zambrano. If they can ride out the rough patches by playing slightly-above .500 ball, then everything should be just fine. Even if they play .500 the rest of the season, they'll still finish at 91-71. And that's good enough to win the Central.

Posted by: Deke Martin | June 22, 2008 at 11:54 AM

Renteria hasn't been as bad as some people claim. He hit somewhere over .300 for the first month or so, so it's not like he doesn't have it in him.

He's had 2 or 3 really bad games defensively, which makes his otherwise good fielding numbers look decievingly bad.

The question is whether he's worth the money that they'll be paying him.
-

As for the pitching, I'd love to see the Tigers give Freddy Garcia a shot. At least acquiring him won't force you to give up a prospect from your already depleted farm system. If they signed him, he could be in the majors shortly after the trade deadline, no? It'd be no different than acquiring an arm.

Posted by: desmond | June 22, 2008 at 11:58 AM

"the Cubs may be forced to shut down Rich Hill. Hill failed to get through the first inning for Triple-A Iowa start on Friday, recording 2 outs while giving up 6 ER and 4 BB, and the Cubs simply want to give him an extended mental break."

...After hearing about the game, I made a joke about how Hill might not be in the game by the time CC is traded if he keeps up this pace ~ didnt expect it to be the truth... :\

Anyway, thats one fantasy-baseball season lost for good... Do hope the guy turns it around though, he was a good looking young pitcher...

Posted by: darkstar1661 | June 22, 2008 at 01:48 PM

I was at that Rich Hill game and sat right behind home plate behind an MLB scout (probably a Cubs scout). His fastball was registering at 86-87, and had absolutely no movement. His signature pitch, that looping curve, couldn't hit the plate. There were like 3 wild pitches in there too. It was really sad. The catcher was really laboring to work with him.

Posted by: IowaCubs | June 23, 2008 at 09:41 AM

Well, my 15 wins, 250 K's and 3.10-3.25 ERA for Hill this year was squashed already. Now he can't find the plate in AAA at all. I hope he can turn it around.

Posted by: studio179 | June 23, 2008 at 09:55 AM

Odds & Ends: Hill, Lowe, Renteria

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