NL Central

Carlos Zambrano couldn't even make it to the second inning of his start against the crosstown rival White Sox before throwing yet another tantrum, even being sent home by manager Lou Pinella and eventually suspended indefinitely by Jim Hendry. 

Zambrano gave up four runs in the first inning, but as usual found someone else to blame.

Let's take a trip to the past and revisit players of lore and others who played kind of poor(ly). Our first look is at John Emil Jaha. He was a 14th round selection of the Brewers in the 1984 draft.

He spent seven years with the Brew Crew and made his first appearance with the club in 1992. He wasn't the greatest player ever, but he did have the ability to hit the long ball. He hit 105 home runs with the Brewers in his stay with the team including his top year of 34 home runs and 118 RBI.

It's a question as old as Abner Doubleday.  How does a contending team strengthen their starting rotation by the MLB trade deadline?  Well, it's possibly a bit more modern than Doubleday.

If you are the Cincinnati Reds, just have your All-Star pitcher go down a month and a half through the 2009 season, get a new arm via Tommy John surgery, and have him come back before the All-Star break—very simple, very easy.

There is none of this haggling with other teams regarding potential trades.

The 2010 Cubs are a team I think of as being full of geezers, with Marlon Byrd, Mike Fontinot, Ryan Theriot, Kosuke Fukodome, Xavier Nady, Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee, Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Silva all over 30.  However, the Cubs have been quietly slipping a number of promising rookies into the mix this year.

Who would have thought that the magical formula for the Rockies to start playing better would be to lose their best player?

“Someday, I want to be just like him, one of the best pitchers in the big leagues.”

I've been accused of many things. 

Paranoia, scrutinizing words, conspiracy freak, reading too much into what people say, and on one occasion attempting to take an up-skirt photograph—I swear, I knew the girl and thought she'd be cool with it.

“Someday, I want to be just like him, one of the best pitchers in the big leagues.”

No matter how bad the product was on the field, people flooded to Wrigley Field to see...well...the field.

It brought baseball fans to what seemed like a different decade or even a different century to see a day game with an organ playing and no flashy scoreboard or advertisements to divert the eyes of those of whom have no attention span.

Granted, the crowd still has cell phones to do that, but the field itself would have no part in helping take away from the experience of the old generation of baseball.

It is much easier to write about the Reds when they are winning and things are going swell.

Unfortunately they are not, making the job of Reds sportswriters more tedious and less therapeutic.

In the last two games they have averaged one run, and you don't win many games 1-0.

Even the best percentage in baseball moving runners from first to third is useless if you leave them stranded at the hot corner.

The Pittsburgh Pirates officially called up 3B prospect Pedro Alvarez from Triple-A. He was called up before Wednesday night’s game against the Chicago White Sox and batted sixth for the Pirates.

Alvarez, the second overall pick in the 2008 June Draft, was hitting .277/.363/.533 with 13 HRs and 15 doubles in 242 ABs in Triple-A. He will be the everyday third baseman moving forward and Andy LaRoche will move into a utility role for the Pirates.

Florida Marlins: