Cubs face bullpen crunch

It'll be a quick turnaround for the Cubs, who play Wednesday afternoon after dropping tonight's game 11-6 to the Astros. After watching his team play 13 innings Monday night, Lou was hoping to give his bullpen a bit of a break. It wasn't to be, as Ryan Dempster lasted just 5 innings in his return from the DL.

Worse yet, Lou had to use lefty Sean Marshall for a third straight game, making Marshall doubtful for Wednesday.

It'll be interesting to see if the Cubs make any moves to help the beleaguered bullpen.

Speaking of left-handed relievers, B.J. Ryan made his Iowa debut tonight and pitched 1 inning at Omaha, giving up 1 walk in 1 inning. The former Blue Jays closer, whom the Cubs signed recently, threw 11 pitches, 5 for strikes. We'll see how many outings the Cubs give him before they determine he's ready. In the meantime, they'll continue seeing if the Pirates want to part with John Grabow or the Nationals want to trade Joe Beimel.

Nobody around here had seen what happened in the bottom of the fifth, when Kosuke Fukudome bounced one into the uniform top of Astros reliever Jeff Fulchino. The play went for a single as Fulchino couldn't extricate the ball.

"He might have been wearing a double XL," Fukudome said.

"I've never seen that play before," Lou said. "Never in my life. The guy was looking for the ball. I had no clue where it was. Usually, you see it stuck in his web or something. It was in his uniform. Now how do you throw the uniform off of him?"

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