Rich Hill was pulled from his start at AAA Iowa tonight in the third inning with "physical problems." No, I don't know what that means. I don't think it's "good" in any objective sense.

UPDATE 10:00 AM - The Des Moines Register is reporting back stiffness. Hill will be reevaluated today.

Paul Sullivan does another one of his mailbags, and he answers Byron's question with basically the same joke that we made. Sullivan always strikes me as being particularly grumpy when he answers his mailbag, probably because he gets questions like this:

We don't get much news on the Cubs out here but it seems that Zambrano is pitching every time I check the Cub scores. Are they over using him and will he end up like Wood and Prior? --Frank Johnson, Watertown, N.Y.

Um. Frank Johnson, I know you will never read this, because you obviously don't have the Internet, but... GET THE INTERNET. Seriously. Or cable TV. Or USA Today. Or (since you seem to have figured out that they publish a Tribune in Chicago) get the Tribune. That'll solve your problem.

Or this:

What are the chances of Lou moving Soriano back to his natural position of second base? --Randall Stojan, Platteville, Wis.

What are the odds of a fish being moved to its natural position of being out of water, Randall Stojan?

On second thought - I really don't understand why Sullivan seems so grumpy. This is fun!

But I learned one or two interesting nuggets - the first being the existence of Hello Kitty Titanium Bracelet Sports Type.  This is presumably for people whose rugged lifestyles prove to be too much for the standard Hello Kitty Rubber Bracelet Little Girl Type.

First, there's this:

Whether Edmonds really is the answer, I'm not sure. Maybe Iowa's Andres Torres could've provided a quick fix until the trading deadline, where Coco Crisp might've been available. But Lou doesn't have enough patience to wait until Felix figures it out, and anyone who has paid attention to Lou's moves over the last two years with struggling players ( Michael Barrett, Cesar Izturis, Rich Hill, etc.) knows they will soon be cast off the island.

Not really news, but seeing it laid out so clearly, it seems to bother me. Those are all obviously very different situations, but the fact of the matter is that Lou seems to be very quick to make up his mind about a player - too quick, in my estimation. The more interesting bit is this:

Cubs starters ranked third in the NL on Friday with a 3.82 ERA, behind Atlanta (3.64) and Arizona (3.80), so I'm guessing there will not be an overhaul in the offing. Lilly has performed well his last five starts, and Gallagher deserves a shot. The only question right now is whether Sean Marshall will pitch well in Iowa and eventually replace Jason Marquis in the second half.

The lack of a mention of Hill is telling - his new injury issue (whatever it is) notwithstanding. Maybe it was a miscommunication on Sullivan's part, or maybe the organization wasn't bullish on Hill returning to form. I have no idea. But let's talk about the rotation, shall we?

The one thing keeping Carlos Zambrano from being the true ace that he pictured himself as was his walk rate - and so far this season, he has his walks well under control. If he keeps that up he could put himself in contention for that Cy Young he's always wanted.

Ted Lilly started off horribly, but has worked his way back toward respectability. I don't expect a repeat of last season, but he should be a very good pitcher on this staff going forward.

As far as Ryan Dempster goes... well, I want to remind everyone to calm down, take a deep breath, and step back just a bit. Remember: last year around this time, some people convinced themselves that Jason Marquis might not suck. Much of Dempster's success is attributable to two causes: his low hit rate and his low home run rate. Dempster's Batting Average On Balls in Play is an anaemic .208.

I've talked about BABIP before - you remove home runs and strikeouts and you figure the batting average that way. The gorey details:

(Hits minus home runs) divided by (at bats minus strikeouts minus home runs plus sacrifice flys)

League average is .290. Well, you may be asking yourself, is it possible that Dempster is above-average in BABIP for a reason having to do with his actual talent? An exceptionally brilliant man named Voros McCracken looked into how pitchers affect their hit rate:

I swear to you that I did everything within my power to come to a different conclusion than the one I did. I ran every test, checked every stat, divided this by that and multiplied one thing by another. Whatever I did, it kept leading back to the same conclusion:

There is little if any difference among major-league pitchers in their ability to prevent hits on balls hit in the field of play.

It's a startling conclusion, to be sure. But there's no reason to expect Ryan Dempster to be the exception here, which means his numbers are due for some... correction.

How much correction? We can figure out what his ERA would look like given a normal BABIP using FIP to calculate what's called a component ERA, based upon his strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. That figure comes out to a 3.50 ERA, still very respectable.

But let's go ahead and flag this with a few caveats: his strikeout rate has actually gone up slightly from last season, and his walk rate has remained the same as it has been the past two seasons. That's unusual - most of the time a player strikes out more batters and walks fewer in a short relief role than he does as a starter. And his home run rate is about half of what it was last year - granted, last year was high for him. But if he can't keep the ball in the yard as Wrigley starts to heat up, I don't have to tell you that could be bad.

Don't get me wrong - I'm still cautiously optimistic about Dempster. I just think it's a bit early to be talking about the All-Star Game for him, and want to caution that he could still turn into a pumpkin at any time.

Contrast this year's Jason Marquis with last year's Jason Marquis - Jason Marquis. He's been as unlucky as Dempster has been lucky, and while he lacks Dempster's gaudy strikeout rate, his walk rate has been better to compensate. What Marquis hasn't been able to do is keep the ball in the yard - he's as homer-prone as he's ever been, he's just doing a better job of keeping the ball on the ground. And for a ground ball pitcher, Marquis has always given up an appalling number of well-hit fly balls, and those tend to leave the park. I'm not cautiously optimistic about Marquis.

That leaves us with the fifth-starter's gig, which currently is being filled by Sean Gallagher. I'm a big fan of Gallagher's, but I'll confess that his outing today didn't impress me a whole lot. That said, not every outing has to be impressive, and I'm just glad that the results were there even if his best stuff wasn't - if nothing else it buys him a longer audition in the starting rotation.

Our "sixth starter" at the moment is one of Sean Marshall, Jon Lieber and Kevin Hart, currently. None of them are actually worse than Jason Marquis, so far as I can tell. The Cubs may keep this in mind if they can find somewhere else to put Marquis.