Night in the Cell with Joe Mauer

I went to the Sox/Twins game on 8/11/2010 with an old friend who is also a Sox fan. He's also a Twin.

Apparently quite a few Cubs fans I follow on Twitter also really, really like Joe Mauer.
I promised pictures.

He's good at baseball.

That's why he reached second. 

He got hurt. Then the trainer healed him with his neck.

Then he was all better. That made his teammates smile.

It made the Twins fans in front of us smile, too. I tried to reinforce their worst suspicions of White Sox fans by telling them to go back to Saskatchewan and worrying aloud that the warnings issued to both benches might hurt the international relations between Minnesota and the USA. I think they bought it.

Here's another shot of Mauer licking his lips.

And another, just for overkill.

Hopefully I can resume Cubs-only blogging activities soon. I hear we have some brand new players of our own, and I can't wait to meet them all.

The Cubs Giveth & The Cubs Taketh Away

Getting shutout by a rookie pitcher isn't good enough for a team supposedly blessed with potent bats, and it isn't good enough for their hitting coach, either. So it makes enough sense for Gerald Perry to get the message-sending heave ho after the Cubs were blanked 2-0 by Anthony Swarzak and the Twins.

But apparently, blanking the Cubs isn't good enough for Swarzak to keep his job. The Twins handed him the game ball and a demotion to AAA after his shutout performance on Saturday. So that's what it's come to? Shutting out the Cubs just isn't that impressive?

The sad thing is, the rookie will almost certainly give up more runs in his next minor league start than he did against the Cubbies. Anthony, if you're reading this, look up Jake Fox in AAA. Maybe he and his 5-6 pinch-hitting performance can console you on the pain of being demoted for succeeding.

So the Cubs' futility on offense couldn't keep Swarzak in the big leagues and brought new hitting coach Von Joshua out of the minors. What impact will any of it have on the Cubs offensive woes? Unless Mr. Joshua has a doctorate in psychology, I'm not too sure he'll have the answer to the Cubs troubles.

I also hope I'm wrong, as do all the future rookie pitchers waiting to try their hand against this Cub lineup.