Desperado

Jon Leicester will start on Monday vs. the Mets

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Cubs are as desperate as they come. According to cubs.com, Jon Leicester will start the Monday nights game against the Mets at the Friendly Confounds. Leicester takes Ryan Dempster's spot in the rotation. Dempster is now the new Cub Closer.


Your new Cub closer, for the moment, is Ryan Dempster

So the Cubs now have a second year player taking the ball on Monday night that has never started a game in the bigs. They also have a closer who has a career ERA of 5.00. Dempster has walked a batter more than once every other inning over parts of 7 MLB seasons. As crazy as this all sounds it probably is the only choice for Baker. What else should he do? The bullpen is not big league quality and Dempster has never performed as a starter. For the minute this is the plan. Maybe the Cubs can find something in Dempster. I won't hold my breath.

Speaking of desperate
On Sunday, Dusty Baker had Carlos Zambrano throw 136 pitches in the Cubs win over Philadelphia. The Cubs needed the win badly. But throwing Zambrano that many pitches is risky. If something were to happen to Zambrano, who would move into the rotation next?