Cashner’s Call Up, leads list of Changes to the Cubs Staff

The Cubs continued today to make drastic changes to their roster, in order of finding ways to fix the poor start that the team has gotten off to this season. Changes that were made today may have the most impact on how the Cubs play for the rest of the season, as they brought up top pitching prospect Andrew Cashner, moved starter Tom Gorzelanny to the bullpen, and placed Carlos Zambrano back into the starting rotation.

Ever since the Cubs decided to move Andrew Cashner to the bullpen last week when he was with triple A-Iowa, his call up was considered to be imminent. It is likely that the Cubs are looking at Cashner to be their eighth inning set-up guy, or even possibly working in seventh inning to first get acclimated with his role.

Cashner possesses a very good fastball that is capable of reaching 97 MPH, something the Cubs have desired out of that set-up role. Before his call up, Cashner was 3-0 with a 0.86 ERA,  he had three starts and two relief appearances. In those two appearances he allowed four hits on no runs while striking out three.

The corresponding move in order to make room for Cashner, was the Cubs placed struggling reliever John Grabow on the disabled list due to a knee related issue. However, it probably was due more so to his bad pitching and not as much as the injury.  The Cubs are put in a difficult position on what to do with Grabow, as he is not getting the job done at the major league level, but he is getting paid too much to be in the minor league.

Joining Cashner in the bullpen, will be Tom Gorzelanny, who is not too excited about being in the rotation…

"“I thought I was good enough (at starting) to continue but this is what they do,” Gorzelanny said. “I’ve just got to go with it. This is not an individual sport, it’s a team sport and whatever I can do to help the team is what I’ll do.” CHICAGO TRIBUNE"

Can anyone really blame Gorzelanny for being upset, considering that while he is only 2-5, he has an ERA of 3.66 and has kept the Cubs in every game he has started and he is being replaced by a guy in Carlos Zambrano who is 1-3 with a 6.12 ERA.

On top of the pitching moves, Lou Piniella also said on Sunday that he will change the lineup around and possibly move some players in and out of the lineup pending on production. One player that has to be getting more playing time is Tyler Colvin, who coming into today has the highest batting average of all the rookies with .310. He also has belted out 5 home runs and driven in 13 batters totaling out to a .634 slugging percentage.