• Jake Fox is hitting only .179 for Iowa. The one thing that is positive is that 9 of his 14 hits so far this year have gone for extra bases (bringing his OPS to .585)


• Sam Fuld was hitting a mere .100. He is only played in 6 games, the last being on April 14th, but according to the I-Cubs website, isn't on the DL.

Tennessee

• Matt Craig, the 3rd round pick of the Cubs in 2002, is hitting .360 for the Smokies with a .543 OBP. He has only played in 9 games, due to a trip to the DL, but the quick numbers are impressive.


• Ryan Harvey, the Cubs 2003 1st round pick, is struggling at the plate. He is hitting a mere .204 and has 22 K's in 54 AB's.


• Donnie Veal, who struggled early last year but is still considered the #6 prospect of the Cubs, is off to a 1-0 start with an ERA of 3.18 in 4 starts. The numbers are a bit deceiving, however, as he has walked 15 guys in just 17 innings.

• Jim Adduci is hitting .370 in 21 games with an OBP of an even .500. Basically, Matt Craig numbers with more PT.


• Tony Thomas, the Cubs 3rd round pick (and ranked as the #9 prospect overall) is hitting a respectable .297 with 5 SB's.


• Alex Maestri, the Italian born pitcher for Daytona, is 2-0 with a 1.31 ERA in 4 games with Daytona, 3 of them being starts.

Peoria

• Josh Donaldson, the 2nd round pick from last year, is off to a cold start. After tearing it up in the short season with Boise last year, he is only hitting .157 with the Chiefs. Donaldson has been a difficult case for the Cubs, as they want to bring him along slowly, but some feel he would be better suited at Daytona playing for former catcher Jody Davis.


• The Peoria 'Pen-Ryne Sandberg's entire bullpen has enjoyed the cold Midwest weather at the beginning of the season. A relative no-name bunch from the prospect/draft viewpoint, Audy Santana, Hung-Wen Chen, Craig Muschko, Dustin Sasser, Blake Parker, and Marcus Mateo all have ERA's below 2. Jordan Latham, the worst of the bunch, has an ERA of 2.14.

According to Paul Sullivan on his Tribune Blog, Congressman Rahm Emanuel needs to bone up on his "hometown Cubbies." When Emanuel initially issued a press release congratulating the Cubs on their 10,000th, he misspelled Sandberg as Sandburg, got the date the Cubs played their first game wrong, wasn't able to correctly count the number of years they had been in existence correctly, and stated that Wrigley was located in his district at 1600 W. Addison (not 1060).

Welcome to the 10,000 Win club. Like the Saturday Night Live "5 Timer's Club" Skit, the Cubs are joining a very exclusive club, as the Giants are the only franchise to be 10,000 Win Club members. More to come tomorrow!

• Not exactly Cubs news here, but MLB Trade Rumors has a nice piece on NL Central foe and ex-Cub scrap-heap Cincinnati Reds' firing of GM Wayne Krivsky and subsequent replacement by former St. Louis Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty. The piece has a solid run down of the moves Krivsky made in his short tenure with the Reds. Honestly, not a bad job by Krivsky. There are certainly some questionable moves in there (like not getting anything of value in return for Austin Kearns, the Mike Stanton deal from this year) but there's a lot of great acquisitions as well (Hamilton, Harang, Keppinger, Phillips). The writing has pretty much been on the wall here since Jocketty came on board, though. But the timing really is curious. I wonder what it was that made this go down now?

• Check out this ridiculously in-depth look at Kosuke Fukudome's hot start from Roto Authority utlizing MLB's PITCHf/x data. The data so far shows that our eyes haven't been deceiving us while watching Cubs games-Fuku has a genius level command of the strike-zone. The Sun-Times has a nice article up today discussing Fukudome's plate discipline and its effect on the entire team.

• No...he didn't hit another HR. Or go 5-5. But as of Bottom 8 in today's game, Felix Pie has followed up yesterday's breakout game by going 2-5 with 2 singles. Not convinced that this is important? Try this on: today is Pie's first multi-hit game since September 29, 2007. And his 2nd since last August 11th. And in Pie's 103 games played in the bigs-it's the 10th time he's ever had a multi-hit game. Let's keep it goin' Felix.

Big Z had another great start. ARam hit a big time HR that could have been the decider. And Ronny C had a HUGE 2 run single in the bottom of the 8th with 2 outs and 2 strikes to stretch a precarious 1 run lead into a 3 runner. All of those were huge factors in determining the result of tonight's game. But what I want to talk about is what I think will end up having the biggest effect on the Cubs 2008 season. Felix "Be My Cherry" Pie's first ever home run at Wrigley Field. (video)

Freaking awesome. I simply could not be happier for this kid or more excited about that HR and his entire AB. Pie entered the game in Top 8 as a defensive replacement for the swift footed Daryle Ward. Pie came up in the bottom of the 8th in the 9 hole and was the first batter to face Jorge Sosa, who had come on to relieve Aaron Heilman who, despite having nearly worked out of a bases loaded with no out jam, had just given up the Cedeno single. Pie took 2 balls out of the zone for balls and then deposited the 3rd pitch into the right center bleachers.

Only 3 pitches, but I am jacked about this AB. Pie hasn't seen a full game's worth of ABs since April 15 when he went 0-4 vs. Cincy. Pie hasn't started a game since and has had only 3 ABs in that time. During that time the Cubs, including former hitting coach Lou Pinella, have been working intensely with Pie on his swing. Pie has been spending a ton of time in the cage working with Cubs coaches on refining his swing and building consistency. They're hitting. They're videotaping. Hell, who knows, maybe they're doing the voodoo thing like Pedro Cerrano with Jobu from "Major League". Today they even flew in Minor Hitting Coordinator Dave Keller specifically to work with Pie on his swing. And tonight, all that work paid off.

Yes, I realize it's only a single HR. But if you can, watch that AB. Pie's swing is so much more compact and controlled now. He started off the pitches with his bat on his shoulder, clearly a reminder to himself to stay compact. Pie's problem has always been a long, looping cut that left a lot of holes. What the Cubs are trying to get him to do is to shorten that cut and sort of slap at the ball-hopefully producing more line drives and base knocks and less swinging strikes and pop ups. By this one AB alone, you can tell that the kid "gets it." The swing that resulted in the HR was NOT at all a HR swing. He stayed within himself and put a nasty charge into the ball. It got over the wall, but that hit was simply a blasted line drive, not a towering HR ball. Great AB, great cut, great result.

It's so easy to compare Pie to Corey Patterson. Both are one time big time prospects. Both are leftys. Both play CF. Both should be great top of the order hitters but tend to take these looping hacks that result in a couple HRs now and again, but more frequently in strikeouts and pop ups. Patterson never "got it." He was as dumb as he was stubborn and refused to listen to, well, everyone, and to this day continues to swing for the fences every AB. Pie is different. Check out this quote from the Dave Keller article:

"He's happy, he's really happy," Keller said. "The best thing about Felix is he'll work. He'll try as hard as he can, and he listens. He knows how close he is, and he wants to compete here. Sometimes you run into guys who make excuses as to why they can't do it, and that's not Felix at all."

People...Felix "gets it." You saw the fruits of all his recent hard work tonight. And you're going to see more. The kid has a total of 205 big league ABs. He's 23 years old. He's still learning. Let's chill out on the "send Pie to the minors" and the "we need Coco Crisp" talk and let this kid develop into his tremendous potential.

Fukudomania may be here now. But you better get on board with the Felix Pie train now, because it's the future.

"Fukudomania" is gripping Cubdom today. Have you caught it yet?

Carol Slezak seems to have set this Fukudomania craze in full force this morning with her article in the Sun-Times. (Let's set aside for a moment that I really wish my last name were "Slezak"). Per Bleed Cubbie Blue, the term appears to have been coined back in February by Bruce Miles in this article for the Daily Herald. But today is the day it caught hold.

Slezak compares Fukudomania to the "Kid K" phenomenon surrounding Kerry Wood in 1998. Only it seems that this may be bigger. Granted, Kid K was in 1998. But was there an equivalent to www.fukudomeismyhomie.com back in the day? Not that I recall...but there probably should have been.

The offshoot of this particular phenomenon is also a rash of pretty entertaining articles about how poorly Cubs fans, or probably more accurately-Google Translate, are at translating English to Japanese. Here's a wrap up from Deadspin.com. And one from some BS AOL website called "Fan House" (who uses these sort of sites for information anyway?)

Fuku is off to a tremendous start. Factor in that he's new to the country, is trying to adjust to a new league and a new style of play, is unfamiliar with the ballparks, and hasn't seen any of these pitchers before and his fast start is all the more impressive. The kid plays the game right. He hustles. He stays within his game and tries to get on base rather than jack every ball over the fence. He plays good D. He's got a hose in RF. He runs the bases well. In short, he's a "ballplayer" in every positive sense of the word. I'll admit it, I have a major man-crush on the guy.

Fukudomania is here. And he flat out deserves every bit of adulation he's receiving.