NL Central

On August 17, 2007, it was difficult to see exactly how stable the Chicago Cubs would be in the long-term.

There were still seven years left on Alfonso Soriano's contract, four left on Aramis Ramirez's, and three on Derrek Lee's and Ted Lilly's, but Soriano, Lee, and Lilly were all heading into their age 32 seasons. Young players like Rich Hill, Sean Marshall, Carlos Marmol, Angel Guzman, and Ryan Theriot had shown some promise but weren't far enough into their careers to even approach status as a known quantity.

Randy Wells should be happy tonight. 

By beating the San Francisco Giants Wednesday night, following his win last week in St. Louis, it is the first time since April that he won two consecutive games.  He has been trying hard to turn his unfortunate season around but it took him until the end of the year to do so.

The right-hander (8-13) outdueled the hot Giants starter, Jonathan Sanchez in the Cubs’ 2-0 victory to tie the series at one game apiece in the three-game set.

Just as the news broke about Ryne Sandberg's name appearing of the list of possible Blue Jays' managerial candidates, the Cubs decided to get involved in the hiring process. 

ESPN reported that the Cubs general manager, Jim Hendry, has met with the Triple-A Cubs manager in Arizona on Tuesday and continued to speak on Wednesday.  

According to Fox Sports' Jon Paul Morosi, the Toronto Blue Jays have added a new name to the list of managers that could be hired to replace their current skipper, Cito Gaston.

Some of the candidates, like Brian Butterfield and Rob Thomson, are stationed in the American League East right now and could remain in the same division if they take the job offer. 

Eric Byrnes/Miguel Olivo - August 2006 

Don Long/Nate McLouth - April 2008

Todd Helton/Susan Rhodes - April 2008

Miguel Olivo/Brian O' Nora - June 2008

The Cincinnati Reds have slept walk through the National League for much of September, but it really doesn’t matter.
 
The magic number for clinching a playoff spot is down to six. If the Reds go 6-6 in their 12 remaining games, the Cardinals would have to go 13-0 to tie. Pop some bottles.
 
The biggest surprise of the season is just a few days away from calling themselves “NL Central Champs." Sounds pretty good huh?
 
Now it’s time to start thinking about postseason play.
 

Have you ever looked at an actor and thought how much he looked like a baseball player, football player or boxer?

Some bear such striking resemblances to a sports star that it is almost freaky.

I know in the movie Billy Crystal did for HBO called "*61", I was overwhelmed with how much Barry Pepper looked like Roger Maris. It was just incredible.

That got me to thinking about which stars looked quite a bit like which actor.

Take a look with me and see if you agree about the resemblance.

It has been a banner season for the Cincinnati Reds organization, as very few people forecasted this type of success.

With the success comes raised expectations, however.

With just a few weeks left, the Reds aren't playing very good baseball at the moment, and it's a bit concerning.

Going 5-5 in their last 10 games against teams like the Pirates, Diamondbacks, and Astros just fuels the fire for the Reds' critics who claim we are tired and have already peaked.

Joey Votto, nor any of the Cincinnati Reds, needed a hit to cut their magic number to seven on Monday afternoon as the St. Louis Cardinals were shut out by the Florida Marlins in a make-up game played due to an early August rain-out.

Lucky seven.

What will it take to force Major League Baseball to finally outlaw maple bats? A player losing an eye…a brain injury…or even worse?

In Sunday’s Cubs game against the Marlins, Cubs rookie outfielder Tyler Colvin was punctured in the chest by a piece of a broken maple bat that just narrowly missed puncturing his lung.