Cubs manager Lou Piniella rested three regulars Tuesday night against New York Mets.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella rested three regulars Tuesday night against New York Mets. While vowing to put a competitive team on the field as Chicago prepares for the postseason.
Third baseman Aramis Ramirez, catcher Geovany Soto and shortstop Ryan Theriot were out of the lineup one day after the Cubs secured home-field advantage throughout the NL playoffs with a 9-5 victory over New York in the opener of a four-game series.
“We’re just going to play as nice of a lineup as we can with the fact that we’re going to do what’s best for the Chicago Cubs also,” Piniella said. “That’s all.”
Piniella could have a big impact on which team Chicago plays in the first round of the playoffs. New York was leading the wild-card race by one over Milwaukee before the game against the Cubs, and was 2 1/2 back of Philadelphia in the NL East.
After the series with the Mets, the Cubs close out the regular season with three games against the Brewers at Miller Park.
“We go from here to Milwaukee where basically we might be in a similar situation,” Piniella said. “We need to play competitive lineups, and we will.”
Piniella tinkered with his rotation before Monday’s win, opting to start Sean Marshall in the second game of the series against New York and move Rich Harden back to Thursday.
Henry Blanco was behind the plate for Marshall’s start, Casey McGehee was at third and Ronny Cedeno played shortstop.
Right fielder Kosuke Fukudome, hitting just .219 since the All-Star break, also was in the lineup after coming off the bench in Monday night’s win. He doubled in McGehee in the second against Johan Santana.
“We’re going to play him, see if we can get him some at-bats and get him swinging the bat well for the postseason,” Piniella said.
—-
Pirates OF Moss may need knee surgery.
Pirates outfielder Brandon Moss will get a second opinion on his left knee and may need surgery to repair a cartilage problem in the joint.
Moss, who had an MRI on Monday, said he will travel to Vail, Colo. on Thursday to talk about his options and a decision is expected to be made by Friday. If he needs surgery, he could miss up to 4-6 months and rehab would take him well into spring training.
Moss has not been experiencing pain in the knee and said he feels fine. The MRI determined that there was no ligament damage in the knee, only the issue with the cartilage. He was traded along with reliever Craig Hansen to the Pittsburgh Pirates in a three-team deal that sent Manny Ramirez to Los Angeles and Jason Bay to Boston.
Moss, who turned 25 last week, has played in 45 games for the Pirates, batting .222 with six homers and 23 RBIs in 158 at-bats.
