ACB has been hacked.  We’ll use this until it’s back up and running.

Did Lou Piniella eat dinner after this happened? 

Zambrano won’t return to the Cubs until after the All-Star break.  He argued with a teammate in the fucking dugout for fuck’s sake.  And then went to dinner. 

I keep reading how the Cubs and Carlos Zambrano have to talk to one another.  That’s not really true.  The Cubs can continue to talk to the media as they have been doing to get messages to Zambrano.  That seems to be their preferred way of discussion with players.  They’re pretty good at.  I guess they have to be good at something.

I also keep reading about how Zambrano has to apologize.  What is this, grade school?  Zambrano fucked up for sure, but he sure as shit doesn’t have to apologize.  And you know what?  The Cubs can’t make him apologize.  You can’t suspend a player until, well, until he fucking apologizes.  I’m quite sure the MLBPA would have issues with such a suspension. 

You know what really needs to happen here?  It’s what should have happened all along.  Shut the fuck up!  Zambrano embarrassed himself on Friday and the Cubs have embarrassed themselves on Saturday, Sunday and I’m they’ve done the same on Monday already.  The Cubs had a perfect opportunity here to take the high road.  They could have sent him home, suspended him and then be done with it.  Instead, they open their fat fucking mouths like the rumor-mongering bitches they are and they can’t shut up now. 

Zambrano snapped and while he was without a doubt wrong for doing so, it wasn’t planned.  The attacks the Cubs have laid on Zambrano have been planned and executed very well on their part.  Zambrano owes nobody an apology except Derrek Lee.  The rest of those fucks in the organization have taken a shitty situation and made it worse.  They’ve made the Cubs the laughingstock of baseball once again.  Well fucking done!

Finally.  I guess he had to become the league leader in OPS before being promoted, which he accomplished with last night’s 3-3 game.  He also leads the league in wOBA. 

What Zambrano did has been discussed over and over, but what the Cubs have said with regards to Carlos Zambrano and Ozzie Guillen having dinner is what makes this whole thing so damn funny.

““It’s certainly not (Guillen’s) fault,” Hendry said. “He just kept his end of the pre-arranged dinner. I just think that if you go through what you did that day, and go through what you did with your own teammates that day, you might be better served staying home.”

Personally, I think he should have been sent to his room without dinner.  He also should have been grounded for 2 weeks.  No playing in the park (not even with the kids).  No talking on the phone.  Most importantly, he cannot leave his house.  This is serious business, people.  Carlos Zambrano yelled at teammates in a dugout and must be punished accordingly.  Here’s how Zambrano should be punished for yelling in a dugout:

• No tv
• No phone (not even if it’s an emergency)
• No going outside for 2 weeks
• No video games
• No DVD’s
• Go to bed without desert
• Must be in bed by 10
• No sex
• Chores start at 6:00 am.

So much to report, so little interest in doing so.

Jeff Stevens has been optioned to AAA and Brian Schlitter has been added to the 40-man roster and re-called.  Carlos Zambrano will move back to the bullpen when his suspension is up.

The Cubs were also upset that Zambrano ate dinner last night.  Apparently he should have gone to his room without food and desert. 

Despite what some remarkably unintelligent people would like you to believe, Carlos Zambrano has not cost this team 4 or 5 wins this season.  How do we know that?  If we take a look at his pre-season projection (3.95 FIP), we see he was worth 3.6 WAR over 201 innings pitched.  We’re basically half way through the season so we can do some simple math here.  All we have to do is divide by 2 to figure out how much Zambrano’s underperformance has cost the 2010 Chicago Cubs.  That’s 3.6 WAR divided by 2.  If we get out our calculators for such a difficult computation, we see that he has cost the team 1.8 WAR. 

However, Fangraphs had him at .8 WAR while B-ref had him at 0 WAR (rally’s WAR).  We’ll take the average and say he’s been worth .4.  So he’s cost the team 1.2 wins.  Do you know how good the Cubs would be if they had that win back?  They’d be 1 game closer and sitting at a very nice 33-40 and right in position to make a late season run. 

We haven’t even taken into account the fact that the Cubs used Zambrano in the bullpen for a month.  That’s not his fault.  Factor that in and he’s cost them less than a win, but don’t believe math.  Believe Jimmy and Alex.  Although they are stupid fucking retards, they know baseball! 

The Cubs have suspended Carlos Zambrano indefinitely after his dugout blowup following the 1st inning of today’s game. 

The Cubs suspended pitcher Carlos Zambrano indefinitely Friday following his outburst in the dugout after the first inning of the White Sox’s 6-0 victory at U.S. Cellular Field.

“His conduct was not acceptable,” Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said. “It has become a bit of a tired act.”

Hendry said he spoke briefly with Zambrano, who was sent home during the game by manager Jim Piniella, but didn’t indicate whether the pitcher apologized for his actions.

“We had a very short conversation, there wasn’t a lot of time for apologies,” Hendry said.

Lou had this to say:

“He was ranting and raving and was out of control,” Piniella said. “We just couldn’t tolerate that. We just told him to go back in (to the clubhouse). Even though our bullpen was really short because we played 13 innings yesterday, those guys sucked it up and did a great job.

“That’s something that can’t be tolerated. He came in after he got the third out and he started yelling and screaming. It was embarrassing. ... There’s no excuse for this, none at all, no excuse whatsoever.

“I’m embarrassed, he should be embarrassed. He’s going to have to apologize to his teammates, that’s for darn sure. We’ve got our share of problems, we don’t need those. I sent him home, yes.”

After Zambrano left, he apparently screamed at cameramen filming his exit from The Cell and Zambrano “launched into a profanity-laden tirade.” 

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I couldn’t care less about what Zambrano.  I couldn’t care less what any of these guys did even if the team was contending.  Would I prefer that kind of behavior not take place?  Absolutely.  I’d also prefer that everybody follow the speed limit, pay their taxes on time, and I’d really like it if people would stop killing one another.  Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.  Baseball is it what it is.  It has a long history of outbursts just like this one today and it’s going to continue to have them.  It happens in the NFL, NBA and probably the NHL and other professional sports as well.  So yeah, I’d prefer it not happen, but it’s going to happen.  That’s just the reality.

We can sit here and talk about how Zambrano is a piece of shit, an asshole or whatever else the Al Yellon’s of the world are sure to say, but the problem with doing that is we’ll be sitting here saying that about player after player after player and doing it year after year after year.  Carlos Zambrano has a temper.  We’ve all known that.  Some have enjoyed poking and prodding him in hopes of today’s event just so they can prove once again what a worthless douchebag of a journalist op-ed writer he is. 

Zambrano did something embarrassing today.  People make it sound like it was the first time any person has behave in an embarrassing manner.  The Al Yellons must live in a barn, which is actually probably where they do all live with one another.  It is a cult.

Most here are more than familiar with this site, but if you come here to complain about Zambrano, do yourself a favor and go away.  Find a Yellon-sponsored blog (there are dozens of Cubs blogs like that) and you’ll fit right in.

Zambrano had a terrible 1st inning and apparently had a dugout blowup and Lou has replaced him with Tom Gorzelanny.  It appeared as though Zambrano motioned to Lou as he went into the clubhouse as to say fuck this. 

Brad has a really good article up on Andrew Cashner.  It’s time the Cubs fix this silly mistake and put Cashner back in the AAA rotation so he can come up to the big league club when they trade a couple of their starters. 

Ace at Bleacher Nation quotes some journalist making it sound like the decision of who to get rid of today is actually rather tough.  It’s not.  Jeff Baker or Chad Tracy.  Chad Tracy loses every time.  There’s no difficult decision to be made here.  It’s actually a very, very simple one.  In fact, I’m not sure there could be any simpler decision a team like the 2010 Cubs could make. 

anothercubsblog.net is going through a server migration and is currently down.  I’m unsure when it may be back up.  I’ll post updates here as I get them.

From Will Carroll’s (humbly titled) Twitter feed:

Cubs signing of Mike Cameron is waiting on deal of Milton Bradley, which has been “imminent” for about 72 hours.

I’d feel a lot better about this rumor if Carroll had a possible destination for Bradley, but I think it’s safe to assume that the deal is to Tampa for Burrell.  Now, if we put on our thinking caps (note: NOT a thinking cap) and consider that if signing Cameron is the next move after Bradley is dealt, Pat Burrell probably isn’t staying in Chicago.

Which means Luis Castillo might be heading to Chicago.  (ed note: I want to force choke the piss out of that sentence.)

But not necessarily. As Bruce Miles points out, the Cubs have finally realized Fukudome is hopeless vs. LHP, and may actually do something about it:

The Cubs also would like a right-handed hitting outfielder who can play right field to complement Fukudome, who had only 9 hits in 55 at-bats against left-handed pitching this year

When taken in concert with Burrell’s solid career line vs. LHP (.269/.403/.513), Fukudome’s haplessness vs. LHP could just provide a way for Hendry to keep Burrell here.  Burrell as the light side of a platoon with Fukudome minimizes both players’ deficiencies.  It protects Fukudome from facing LHP, who are pure death to him, and it protects the fans from being turned to stone by the Gorgon-esque spectacle of Pat Burrell’s OF defense.  It also replaces the RH pop off the bench that the Cubs lost when they dealt Jake Fox.  Couple that with the fact that Burrell is in a contract year, and it might not be a bad idea to keep Burrell around, so long as he remains comfortable in a PH/4th OF role.  It also gives the Cubs a nice bit of insurance against an injury to Soriano. 

Having resigned myself to the fact Milton Bradley is going to be dealt, I’m warming to the idea of Pat Burrell.  There’s a bit of upside there when you take a closer look.