Sooooo... what's worse than four walks in an inning?

John Lieber did not exactly cover himself in glory in his first start after taking Rich Hill's spot in the rotation. Of course, neither did long-relief options Sean Marshall or Sean Gallagher. This doesn't exactly leave Lou with a lot of options.

Will Lieber remain in the rotation, or will Piniella go to Plan C, whatever that is?

"We'll sit on it," Piniella said. "We don't need to make a decision right now. But we'll think about it and see what we do."

About the only way Hill comes back any time soon is if someone goes on the DL - the earliest Hill can come back, so far as I can tell, is the nineteenth.

So who's going to start Tuesday? Lieber could be given another go-round. Either of the Seans could get the start, although Wittenmyer thinks that Marshall couldn't be stretched out in time.

What the Cubs won't do is carry 13 pitchers. So one of the Seans may not even be on the roster by the time Tuesday rolls around, as Eyre is supposed to join the club on Saturday.

And GM Jim Hendry says that Lou can - and perhaps will - "mix and match" with the pieces available with him, to try and get the team past their current slump. In spite of the ideas of a certain segment of Cubs fans, do not expect to see a lot of changes at the corners - Soriano will not be benched. Lou's big emphasis is on defense, so expect to see Blanco get more playing time at catc...

KIDDING!

Just kidding, folks. Please don't kill me.

In center, expect to see increased competition in the tallest midget contest Reed Johnson and Felix Pie are currently engaging in. Johnson's stock continues to fall - his incredible .257/.336/.297 (and no, I did not screw that up - he is slugging, if you can use that word, .297) batting line is probably not going to cut it over a full season. That said, it is better than Pie's .217/.284/.283; I'd mention that at least Pie's numbers are trending upward but it kicks off the uncomfortable conversation about where they were before.

However, if you were to take their splits and combine them - using Pie against right handed pitching, and Johnson against left handed pitching - you'd have a bizarre Frankenstinian player hitting .259/.365/.321, which still isn't that good but is better than either of them alone. I call this idea the "platoon." Lou is free to borrow it without crediting me, however.

The stickier situation is the middle infield, where an interesting sort of battle is developing. Ronny Cedeno is the only natural defensive shortstop of the bunch, and has been the best hitter in the early going. So of course Ronny has played twice as many games at second base as he has shortstop, and has largely come in off the bench. (I am contractually obligated to point out, however, that in his first full season of play he hit .245/.271/.339 and made 23 errors. I am not arguing that his abysmal 2006 performance has any predictive value above and beyond how we would weight it for any other player, I just don't want any trouble with the union.)

The other three are an interesting case study. Mark DeRosa has seemingly gone from "team MVP" for a large segment of the fanbase, to being an utter goat. That said, he's basically an average second baseman, and Cedeno-DeRosa is probably the team's best double play combination.

Since the injury bug bit the team, Theriot-Fontenot has probably been the most common double play combination. It's an open question as to whether either of them belongs in the majors, frankly. I won't rehash this argument again, though.

There are worrying hints that Cedeno is finally going to get some hard-won playing time - and let's face it, if Lou wasn't going to start playing Cedeno now, he was never going to start playing Cedeno, because it'd be impossible for him to play better than he has so far this season - but at the expense of DeRosa, not Theriot or Fontenot. Worse, Lou could go with Theriot at short and leave Cedeno at the keystone in an embarrassing display of not understanding defensive ability.

One final note - the Iowa Cubs have activated second baseman Eric Patterson and first baseman Micah Hoffpaiur from the disabled list. The odds that Eric Patterson will replace Mike Fontenot anytime soon: lower than they should be. The odds that I will tear my hair out over people suggesting that Hoffpaiur get called up before the summer is over: high. Hoffpauir hit .319/.365/.552 last year at AAA, which looks gaudy until you realize that it's AAA and that batting average is the first thing to drop when you hit the majors. His Major League Equivelency was .270/.313/.450, which is really rather bad for a first baseman.