Mike Fontenot

The Giants offense has been lifeless over the past week and now, their best offensive threat is injured.  Third baseman Pablo Sandoval broke the hamate bone in his right hand while taking a swing in Washington on Friday and will have surgery to remove it this Tuesday in Arizona.  He will likely miss at least 4-6 weeks, accordin

The Giants and Cubs had a little unfinished business to attend to before they matched up Wednesday night in San Francisco. With the owner's meetings getting underway in Minneapolis, Jim Hendry and Brian Sabean completed a trade that they reportedly began talking about as the trade deadline was approaching.

Friday is Aramis Ramirez's 32nd birthday. It's also the day that he will be activated off of the disabled list.

In order to make room for the embattled third baseman, somebody needs to move off the 25-man roster. Since the team has only just started a stretch of 20 days without an off day, they can't afford to go with fewer than 12 pitchers.

That means, while Ramirez might have a very happy birthday tomorrow, one of the club's position players will be less than thrilled.

It's now June and the Cubs sit four games below .500 and six games behind the Cards and Reds.

With 52 games in the books, the season is getting dangerously close to one-third over. So all the cries not to worry because it's early are starting to ring hollow.

Meanwhile, we know that Jim Hendry doesn't have money to work with, and is stuck with expensive, long-term contracts that have no-trade clauses. So any suggestions must work within these limitations.

So while I'd love to suggest we go out and obtain Roy Oswalt, we need to be practical here.

On Wednesday, Carrie Muskat wrote an article in which she said that "There are no deals pending, no scouts scouring other rosters to find help."

It wasn't a quote from Jim Hendry. It was just a line added into the article between quotes from the Cubs' general manager.

More specifically, it came immediately before the following quote from Hendry:

Finally, it appears that the Chicago Cubs are willing to show some backbone in the dugout after the promotion of Class AA shortstop Starlin Castro to the Major League roster. Castro made his highly anticipated MLB debut on Friday—after a series sweep by the Pirates left the rotation gasping for run support. 

For the first time in four years, Ryan Theriot was moved over to second base to supplement the promotion of Castro.