Some transactions - Rich Hill goes on the minor league DL, and Chad Fox goes on the major league DL.

Losing Chad Fox is unlikely to hurt the club; Lou has seemed reticent to use him out of the pen recently and Fox in turn hasn't been doing much with his limited playing time that didn't involve surrendering runs.(That's what happens when you have three times as many walks as strikeouts, kids!)

I really don't want to sound like I'm cheered by this - Fox is, if nothing else, an inspirational story. But Lou needs to find another reliever he trusts with five-run leads late in the game before he pitches Marmol's arm off, and Fox wasn't the answer there. (Howry doesn't seem to be that guy either - but that's a conversation for another day.) Jose Ascaino, our bounty in the Will Ohman trade, will come up instead. Ascaino, like Marmol, is a rubber-armed flamethrower, and while it would be unfair to expect him to duplicate Marmol's success, this club would really be helped by having another reliable arm in the pen.

As far as Rich Hill - I really can't bring myself to hash through this anymore. I'd really like to see a productive Rich Hill back with the club.

Sullivan says we're more likely to see Marshall or Hart called up to start, and the question is, to replace who? The obvious choice is Jason Marquis, but far less obvious is what to do with Jason Marquis if you decide to replace him in the rotation. (Marshall is favored above Hart because, as always, the Cubs are looking for another lefty.)

And another transaction - Jason Dubois is a Cub again. Okay, so he's an I-Cub, playing first base for our AAA team in Hoffpaiur's absence.

Something I've been tracking so far this season - Ted Lilly right now is hitting .267/.313/.333 for a .646 OPS. Reed Johnson is hitting .256/.340/.326 for a .666 OPS. Lilly was in a slump heading into today's game - just a week ago he was outhitting Johnson comfortably - and must have been embarrassed when Lou had him sacrifice in tonight's game. Here's hoping that Lilly can get his bat going again - the team could really use a left-handed hitter of his caliber in the lineup more often. As it stands, Lilly is not expected to be in the lineup again until the series against Pittsburgh.

(Yes, Ted Lilly is seriously the second-most productive left-handed hitter on the team right now with Ward on the DL. Yikes.)

Soriano knows that at some point he'll hit a slump, and the boo-birds will come back.

Geo Soto cracks me up:

''I didn't dream of [an inside the park home run],'' said Soto, who appeared to have a conventional homer until the umpire ruled that the bounding ball had not cleared the right-angled yellow line outlining where the wall goes from 10 feet high to 25 feet in left-center.

Soto was nearing second when he saw that the ball was in play.

''So I tried to get to third for a stand-up triple or something, and then when I see [third-base coach] Mike Quade waving me home, I was like, 'There's no way,''' he said. ''I was about to take my last breath just to get to third, and he wants me to go home. I was ready to shut it down at second.''

For those wanting clarification on why it wasn't a less strenuous sort of home run, the head umpire says the ball hit the yellow line, which means it was not a home run. As far as what Cecil Cooper went out there to argue about, I have no earthly idea.