Watching Matt Clement push his record to 7-4 last night with a 3.28 ERA, I started to wonder how many of the Cubs deserve a spot on the All-Star team. Last year, despite being in first place almost the entire first half, the Cubs had only two All-Stars, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. It’s a safe bet that neither of them will be back this year. But that’s not to say that the Cubs don’t have a number of guys who should go. In fact, the list is longer than I first thought.

Pitchers:
I’m going on a limb and saying that Regular Joe will not make the All-Star team. I know how tempting it’ll be for Jack McKeon and the MLB office to put Joe on the team with his sparkling 8.02 ERA. But the Cubs do have three pitchers who deserve consideration. Two of whom could very well make the team.

The Lawnmower 6-2, 2.27 ERA, only 58 hits allowed in 72 innings and 70 K’s versus 22 walks. He’s currently one of the three best starters in the league (actually, probably four now that The Franchise is back in the rotation) and there’s no reason he should be excluded from the All-Star team.

Matt Clement his win last night gave him his seventh win and like Zambrano, he has an excellent strikeout (82) to walk (28) ratio. Clement and Carlos saved the Cubs asses in May and the guys who are supposedly the Cubs third and fourth starters are better than just about anybody else’s one and two right now.

LaTroy Hawkins may seem to like George Ofman (scary, and just wrong) but we’ll forgive him because the Hawk has allowed five earned runs this year. If you’re wondering…that’s good. He’s 1-0 with four saves, a 1.38 ERA and a 25-6 strikeout to K. He’s allowed only 20 hits in 32.2 innings pitched. He’ll also be the National League’s second best closer from here on out. He won’t make the All-Star team, though. Sorry, LaTroy, but think of all the media you won’t have to talk to.

Position players:
Moises Alou was washed up in 2002, remember? It was all over. It was so over that we thought 22 homers and 91 RBI out of him last year was a big deal. But this is the Moises Alou who starred for the Expos, Marlins and Astros. He’s hitting .320 with 14 homers and 36 RBI and when Sammy comes back, Moises can go back to getting a day off once and a while before his legs fall off. He’s been the Cubs first half MVP (at least on offense) and deserves his All-Star spot on merit. Plus, Joe Buck can be as witty as all get out with the pee pee jokes during the telecast.

E-ramis Ramirez is the third best third baseman in the National League. That might not sound like much, but when you consider that the only ones better than him are Scott Rolen and Mike Lowell, that’s pretty good company. And…E-ramis is not really all that far behind Lowell. He’s also only 25 years old, which is a very good thing. Defensively, he’s been tremendous, and not all of that can be attributed merely to having Derrek Lee to throw to. It’s obvious he worked a lot on his defense and the improvement is dramatic. I could stop calling him E-ramis, but if it’s not broke…don’t fix it.

Sammy Sosa is currently second in voting among outfielders and since there’s no Albert Pujols in the outfield this year for baseball to fudge the voting numbers for, Sammy will likely get voted in. That could hurt the candidacy of one of the other Cubs, but he’s Sammy, damnit! Besides, he should be in prime form by mid-July and ready to roll.

Michael Barrett is having a great season at the plate, especially for a guy who has batted seventh or even eighth most of the season. Only four catchers have numbers as good as, or better than Barrett’s .327, eight homers and 29 RBI. Mike Piazza is hitting .304 with 13 and 28 and will get voted in. Paul LoDuca is hitting .360 with four homers and 25 RBI and Johnny Estrada is hitting .351 with four homers and 38 RBI. Chances are, Barrett won’t get picked, but it’s not that he’s not deserving.

So, that’s seven names. How many will the Cubs get? The early guess is Alou, Sosa and Zambrano. If Sammy doesn’t get voted in then Alou, Zambrano and Clement.

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Last night was kind of a surreal night at the ballpark. The Fox Sports Net satellite truck got hit by a power surge and Chip and Steve had to do the broadcast on the phone for the first couple of innings. Chip loved it because it gave him an excuse to talk even more. Then, when the normal feed was restored, the Cubs got busy whacking Woody Williams around.

Chip blamed Williams’ bad bottom of the third on the fact that he had to run the bases in the top of the third. If that’s true, then apparently, Woody’s been running the bases non-stop since last July.

Before last year’s All Star break, Woody was 12-3 with a 3.01 ERA. Since, he’s 9-12 with a 5.18 ERA. It’s obvious that his deal with the devil expired last July. It was nice knowing you, Woody.

I’m sure this little sequence last year really helped Woody straighten things out, too.

On September 1 he pitched the Memorial Day game against Mark Prior and got lit up, giving up six earned runs in four and a third. He threw 112 pitches. Then, on one day’s rest, he came in to pitch the bottom of the eighth inning during the Cubs’ 8-7 win on September 3. You remember that game. The Cubs got down 6-0 after Felix Sanchez gave up a grand slam, but came back to score eight runs in their last three at bats. Moises Alou had five hits, including the game winner off of Woody. Regular Joe slammed the door in the ninth by striking out Lassie to send the crowd into hysterics.

Then, on September sixth, Woody took his regular turn in the rotation against the Reds. You remember the Reds last September, it was Ryan Freel, Wily Mo Pena and Jason LaRue against the world. Shawn Estes shut them out and Kerry Wood nearly no hit them on back to back nights. Anyway, those superstar Reds lit Woody up for six earned runs in six innings and Houston followed with eight earnies in less than four innings in his next start.

But yes, Chip. I’m sure the reason the Cubs hit him is because he got tired running the bases last night.

Whatever.

Speaking of Lassie, he had a tough go of it in the game last night. Derrek Lee pantsed him twice. With runners at second and third, Lee singled hard to center and Edmonds charged in and let the ball roll right past him to the wall. A couple innings later, Lee hit one over his head and Edmonds lunged only to have it bounce off his glove for a double. He ran into Ray Lankford on a routine pop up and early in the game, Todd Hollandsworth deeked him into making a bad throw back to the infield and Todd cruised into second. At the plate Lassie was 0-3 with an RBI sac fly.

But the final capper on the surreal night was the eighth inning at bat of Roger Cedeno. With one out, Cedeno got into it with home plate umpire Rick Reed about the first two strikes in his at bat. Cedeno freaked out. We missed most of the early part of the argument on Fox Sports Net because they were showing us highlights of Sammy playing catch before the game. Yes, they showed a good 40 seconds of Sammy playing catch. What’s next, do we get to watch four minutes of him doing some stretching? When they finally got to showing the argument, Cedeno was still freaking out. Reed pointed for Cedeno to get into the batter’s box and Cedeno slammed his bat on home plate. Apparently he broke it and tossed it aside. Reed had seen enough of the tantrum and threw Roger out of the game. Then, Cedeno really went nuts. In a display that would test even our fool proof (hardly) profanity filter Cedeno repeatedly called Reed a “procreating piece of feces” and twice had large plumes of spittle fly out of his mouth onto Reed. Somewhere, Robbie Alomar was watching and analyzing Roger’s form. Finally, Cedeno headed to the clubhouse and The Genius stepped in, and even he seemed embarrassed by it. So Taguchi finished up Cedeno’s at bat and struck out for him. Since Cedeno already had two strikes on him, Roger gets the K. Had Taguchi gotten a hit, it would be credited to Taguchi.

If you assume another player’s at bat, you are reponsible for the resolution to the at bat with two exceptions. If he had three balls on him when he left the at bat (likely to be checked by a urologist) and you take ball four, he gets the walk. If he had two strikes on him (like Cedeno) and you strike out, he gets the K. Otherwise whatever you do (get a hit, ground out, pop out, pass out in the grass and wet your pants, etc.) counts on your permanent record. Had Taguchi taken the 1-2 count and drawn a walk, the walk would have been credited to Taguchi.

Today we get a great pitching matchup. Matt Morris, who won’t throw a curveball until the third inning (which is just stupid) goes up against The Franchise.

Morris starts the game throwing just fastballs and change ups. Not surprisingly, opposing hitters are batting .400 against him (with five homers) in the first inning. In innings 1-3 they hit .273, in innings 4-6 they hit .230 and if he’s still around they only hit .128 off of him from innings 7-9. Then again, this is a guy dumb enough to injure himself last year running through a hotel hallway, so go figure.

As for Prior, this is his first stab at the Cardinals since that Memorial Day massacre and the first since portly portsider Steve Kline said he hoped Prior took “a line drive to the head so we’d never see him again.” Bad news, Kline. You and your mono-digit-IQ fan base will see him today and every year until about 2022. Get used to it.

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How close were the Pistons to winning the game last night, and consequently the NBA Finals? If Rip Hamilton doesn’t clank a free throw (83.2 percent in the playoffs) with less than a minute to go, Kobe’s three isn’t enough. Even with the miss, why didn’t Detroit foul Shaq as soon as he touched the ball on that last possession? Even if he makes both (not likely) free throws you still have the lead and the ball and the Lakers have no timeouts.

So now it’s tied at one and goes back to Detroit. Give the Pistons credit for outplaying LA in both games so far. In fact, they look like the better team. The reason for that is simple. They can take every Laker out of the game except Shaq and Kobe (who nobody else can, either) and play five on two. As great as Shaq and Kobe are, they aren’t going to win four out of seven playing five on two. If the Pistons can keep Karl Malone looking old and Gary Payton nailed to the bench they’re in good shape. I don’t expect to see Luke Walton put up this line, ever again.

Walton was 3-3 from the field, 1-1 from the line, had five rebounds, eight assists, two blocked shots and ZERO turnovers in 27 minutes. I hope Luke saves a copy of the game, because if there’s a Luke Walton time capsule, this game goes in it.

There was also a Brian Cook sighting! He played one minute. He did not scratch a statistical category. It’s just nice to know he’s alive and well.

—

Matt Clement shook off a hot night, his asthma and my constant worry that he’d implode and pantsed the Cardinals…again. That’s pretty fun.

Against the Cardinals this year, Clement is 3-0 in three starts with a 2.74 ERA. He’s allowed 13 hits in 23 innings and struck out 20 while walking only five. In short, he owns those ****ers!

Jim Hendry says LaTroy will talk, eventually. I don’t care. Just get the outs, baby.

Dan McGrath looks at Corey Patterson and sees Lou Brock. I’d settle for Kathy Brock.

Rick Morrissey is just mediocre today. For him, an improvement.

Not only did Sammy play catch, he got to take a few hacks. He used a bat with a huge C on it and went homer crazy in BP. OK, I’m lying about the C on the bat. I hope. I say the Cubs should activate him and DH him in Anaheim. Otherwise who are they going to use? I’d like to see Jason Dubois or Dave Kelton, but I think it’ll be Macias or Walker with the other one playing second. By the way, why does Jose backhand every ball hit to second? Can we make him stop this?

The Bulls are expected to protect luminaries like Jannero Pargo, Linton Johnson, Paul Shirley and Chris Jefferies from the Bobcats in the expansion draft. I’m sickened by the lack of talent on the Bulls’ list.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to say that the Sox need a “big name” closer to win in October. Hey, this Keith Foulke guy is pretty good. Oh, wait. Never mind.

By the way, these were Foulke’s numbers in 2002, the year he LOST the closer’s job in Chicago. He was 11 for 14 in save chances with a 2.90 ERA and a 58-13 K/BB ratio. He lost the job, why, exactly?

Since the Sox dumped him, he’s only 55 for 61 in save chances with a 111-27 K/BB ratio and a 1.83 ERA. But hey, they got Billy Koch, and Neil Cotts. So that’s…great. Or something.

Brad Biggs with a list of rivalries other than the Cubs-Cardinals. I think the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry is overrated, mostly because the Cubs were so bad for so long. Now, the Cubs are good and so it’s fun. At least it will be until the Cardinals suck every year and then we’ll just enjoy embarassing them.

The Wizard of Roz says now is the time for Dusty’s people skills to take over. I think he’s doing a pretty good job of holding things together. Last I checked the Cubs were only 3.5 back and only one behind the Astros.

Did Parcells call Bryant a Jap?

Here’s ESPN’s account of it, in case you’re not registered for the Dallas Morning News.

Adrian Wojnarowski wants the Buckeyes to bring back Bob Knight. Ooh, charming!

Sports Guy went to Italy. And we’re excited, why?

Sorry Cincinnati…you had a nice run.

Tom Verducci thinks the Padres screwed up with the top pick. Maybe he’ll be the next Billy Almon!?!

Another reason to love TiVo!

J Lo knocked up? Fine, I’ll admit it. It’s my baby.

America’s finest news source on the greatest threat to our kids. You know, J. Lo’s and mine.