NL Central

The Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan is reporting that, after flying out in the sixth inning against the White Sox Friday, Milton Bradley was involved in a verbal altercation with Cubs' manager Lou Piniella.

Bradley was replaced in right field by Ryan Freel in the bottom half of the inning, and was reportedly seen leaving US Cellular Field in street clothes before the ninth inning.

So not only is Bradley not hitting anything, or driving in any runs for his $10 million-plus salary, but now the inevitable has happened.

Please Milton, make it easier for Cubs fans and sportswriters to turn against you.

According to the Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan, after flying out in the sixth inning on Friday against the White Sox, Bradley threw his helmet in the Cubs dugout and then went after the Gatorade cooler.  Manager Lou Piniella then went to talk to Bradley in the tunnel, where the two exchanged angry words.

On Thursday it was revealed that, during the World Baseball Classic, 2008 National League Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto failed a drug test with traces of marijuana in his system.

And as a Cubs fan I thought he didn't hit anything until June...

This piece of lazy news comes as Soto was finally finding the missing spark at the plate. Could it be that Derrek Lee was bogarting the good cage time during road trips? Or was he having trouble picking up the ball's rotation because of excessive exposure to a black light in his closet during the WBC?

Trevor Hoffman has received immense praise for his work this year, and rightfully so. He has 16 saves in 17 chances this year with a 1.31 ERA, and he is very likely to make a return trip to the All-Star game next month.

But Hoffman would attribute much of his success to four players that usually go largely unnoticed to most fans. Without the great play of Seth McClung, Todd Coffey, Mitch Stetter, and Mark DeFelice, the Brewers' season would have a much different feel than it currently does.

I don’t care how comfortable Alfonso Soriano is in the leadoff spot—he has to be moved.

Soriano is a very dangerous leadoff hitter, but only when he makes contact with the ball, which nowadays is not very often. The Cubs' leadoff hitter needs to have a batting average near .291, which is Soriano’s current on-base percentage.

After what seemed like an eternity, the bats finally woke up to lift our Detroit Tigers to a three-game sweep over Milwaukee. The offense was able to put up 28 hits and 19 runs in the first two games to help the back end of the rotation pick up two very important games.

Filed:June 21st, 2009

(Source: Cubbie Nation)

On Thursday, the Chicago Cubs offense dragged itself from the grave to score four runs on back-to-back home runs from Derrek Lee and Geovany Soto against their crosstown rival White Sox and eventually won on a walk-off single in the ninth inning.

On Friday, the offense took six innings off again, only to rally back from what started as a 7-0 deficit to the visiting Cleveland Indians. The Cubs scored four runs in the eighth inning before, in a moment of poetic injustice, longtime Cubs hero Kerry Wood was taken out of the yard by Lee to tie the game in the ninth inning.

It became obvious during their series with the Cleveland Indians that the biggest need for the Milwaukee Brewers is starting pitching. Unfortunately, trying to find that pitcher to acquire is going to be much easier said than done.

There are good options, bad options, and options that are more wishful thinking than anything that could be reality.