Zambrano Scratched From Tonight’s Start

This isn’t news to anybody at this point, but Carlos Zambrano was scratched from his scheduled start tonight with stiffness in his back. He left his last start with the same thing. Sean Marshall replaced Zambrano and had a very rough 1st inning allowing 3 runs. Marshall only lasted 2 innings before being replaced by a wide receiver. I’m not really sure why, but it happened. Zambrano will almost certainly be placed on the DL tomorrow. They’ll backdate it to August 2nd meaning he’d be eligible to come off the DL on August 17th. His next scheduled start would have been Wednesday, but at this point you can’t risk not having enough pitchers or another game like this when you kill your bullpen in one game. Putting him on the DL would mean he’d miss one more scheduled start assuming all things go well as he rests his back. Jeff Stevens would be eligible to return if Zambrano is placed on the DL. The Cubs will also likely add another reliever just to help with the load that the bullpen is getting tonight. 1 fresh pitcher really isn’t going to help enough so I think we’re going to see 2 of them called up. I think the other call up will be a guy who can eat some innings in middle relief if necessary. Mitch Atkins last pitched on August 3rd so today is his 4th day of rest. I think the question is who else gets sent down? Do you use Samardzija for 3-5 innings tonight and then go ahead and option him? That would make sense, but Samardzija even being on this roster just doesn’t make sense. There’s not really another pitcher that would get optioned unless they’d consider optioning Sean Marshall and I don’t see that happening. Jake Fox is a possibility. Aaron Miles shouldn’t be on this team any more than Samardzija is, but at this point I just don’t see the Cubs getting rid of Miles. It’s unfortunate, but if this much suck and uselessness doesn’t make you realize how bad he is, then nothing will. I’m going to predict that tomorrow’s transactions will be Zambrano to the DL, Samardzija to Iowa, Stevens and Atkins re-called.