Corey, give us a check on the corn crop while you're down there.
I fully understand that taking a somewhat established Major League starter and sending him to AAA is a big deal, and probably a move you don’t want to make unless you are absolutely forced to, but how many of you had the same reaction I did to this:

Transactions –> Chicago Cubs: Optioned outfielders Corey Patterson and Jason Dubois to AAA Iowa, recalled outfielders Matt Murton and Adam Greenberg from AA West Tenn

Corey had an option left? And they’re just now sending him to AAA?

From mid-May on, Corey’s play has screamed “I need to completely change my approach at the plate” and it took the Cubs seven weeks to decide he’d have a better chance of actually doing it (or more to the point, a better chance of being forced to have to do it) by being sent to Iowa?

This is why the Cubs are on a 97 years and counting streak of ineptness. Do you think the Yankees or Braves would have put up with his refusal to change anything for this long?

So he’s off to Iowa, and so is Jason Dubois, who’s already lousy outfield has regressed to the point where he couldn’t field a position with a butterfly net.

What do we know about Murton and Greenberg? Well, Murton can hit. Greenberg? He’s Jewish. That’s about all we know.

That’s not true. We know that Murton’s a redhead and looks a little bit like Scott Farkus, only in a good way.

And Greenberg? Uh, did I mention he’s Jewish?

Actually, he got on base to the tune of .387 at West Tenn, and Murton got on base at better than a .400 clip, so this much is sure.

They’ll certainly enjoy their time sitting next to each other on the bench while Jose Macias plays centerfield.

After literally napping their way through a 6-0 humiliation in the early game of yesterday’s doubleheader, the Cubs had their first lead in eight days…twice…in the nightcap. They had a 4-3 lead going into the bottom of the eighth and Roberto Novoa came into the game and crapped all over himself, the mound and most of Fulton County.

He gave up a triple, a homer and a single. Then he took it out on his glove and the dugout bench. But he accomplished something even better. He finally pissed off Bob Brenly.

I’m sure Bob has empathy for the team and for Dusty because the Diamondbacks were downright lousy the last 140 or so games of his regime, and so he’s tried to avoid going off on the Cubs. Until Andruw Jones homered to give the Braves the lead in the eighth.

It’s not just that Bob said, “What a terrible pitch that was!” it was that he said it with the kind of disgust and total frustration that all of us have been feeling since…well, last Thursday.

Welcome to the gang, Bob. It only gets worse from here.

But the Corey Patterson move had the effect Jim Hendry had to have hoped it would. It’s taken some of the focus off the disastrous play of the Cubs the last eight days (well, it will until they play again, Hurricane willing).

The reactions are interesting. There are some fans who think that the move signals the Cubs “giving up on the season.” Wait, are you telling me that sending your worst hitter to the minors is a bad thing? In what kind of bizarro universe is that true?

Most think it’s a much overdue move and like I said before there are dopes like me who assumed that the only reason Corey wasn’t riding a tractor in Iowa a month ago was because he was out of options. That not being the case, I have no idea what possibly could have taken the Cubs so long to make this move. It’s almost obscene that we were forced to watch him flail away like a jackass when the good people of Iowa should have been the ones forced to watch that. Hey they’re used to cheering uncomfortableness, after all they have Steve Alford don’t they?

The real question is how much will Murton or Greenberg get to play? The answer, likely, is not very much. Murton could be especially screwed, unless Dusty deems he can play center. Otherwise he’s stuck as a backup corner outfielder behind two other lefthanded hitters. Greenberg is also a lefthanded batter, but he’s short, so I’m sure Dusty will assume he’s a centerfielder, that might buy him a stray start or two until Dusty realizes the truth. Or, maybe Greenberg can convince Dusty that he’s Doug Dascenzo, and that he’s in his 40s and should play all the time?

If you want to know if Jim Hendry is not only telling the team, but the coaching staff, that things are going to change, all you have to do is see how much Murton or Greenberg play over the next couple of weeks.

This weekend though, won’t tell us much. First, there’s the matter of the hurricane that’s going to dump rain all over the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area (wherever the hell that monstrosity of a ballpark is down there), and secondly, because Josh Beckett’s ovaries are flaring up, the Marlins are going to start three lefties in the series, so you’ll probably get a heaping dose of Jose Macias and Jerry the Lesser.

But when the Cubs get done from their summer All-Star Break vacation, they have eight games in eight days with the only teams in the NL Central still bad enough to be behind them in the standings. Lots of righthanded…no, scratch that, bad righthanded pitching to get Murton and Greenberg comfortable with before the trip to St. Louis to watch the Cardinals and their fans rub our noses in it for three days.

I would hope that if things don’t go well in game one of that series that the Cubs just start a fight and let Carlos tear the arms off a few Cardinals players, but we’ve got 15 days to get ready for that.

It still seems unlikely that Hendry will seriously consider firing Dusty, but what seems fairly likely now is that if this season remains on its disastrous course that Dusty will “retire” at the end of the year. Rather than enter the lame duck final season of his career he could probably get a nice, fat buyout and hold a press conference where he says it’s time to go fishing and hang out with Darren.

Finally (mock applause fills the internet), will we ever see Dubois or Patterson in a Cubs’ uniform again?

Of the two, it’s probably more likely we’ll see Jason. Certainly, it’s possible that Corey could go to Iowa, get straightened out and come back. But, as Jim Garrison said in JFK, “A scientist can tell you how you can hang an elephant over a cliff by tying his tail to a daisy. Common sense tells us otherwise.”

If they waited this long to send him down, then it’s a “last ditch” effort to get him some trade value. You send him down and you hope he does an Austin Kearns and starts hitting.

But there’s a difference, Austin Kearns is merely playing as well as previous Major and Minor League seasons have shown he can play, Corey has no such track record.

As for Dubois, unless Murton flops, he just got passed on the depth chart. Murton’s a lefthanded hitter, doesn’t wet his pants at the sight of a curveball and since nobody could be worse than Jason was in the outfield, he’ll be an upgrade there.

But Jason didn’t do anything to dispute the notion he’ll be able to hit in the big leagues. He’s got real power, the kind that scouts adore and you would hope that after a few weeks of regular starts in left field he’ll remember how to catch fly balls.

His long term future though, would seem to be in the American League.

For now, Iowa will start an outfield of lf-Dubois, cf-Patterson, rf-Kelton. Remember when we are all young, dumb and naive enough to think that would be the Cubs’ outfield?

The guy who really has to be kicking himself is Felix Pie. If not for an awkward slide that cost him a sprained ankle and bone bruise, he’d be in Miami right now trying to figure out how to spend $70 in meal money for the day. Cry not for poor Felix, though. Corey’s bus ticket to Des Moines just kicked the door down for Felix as the every day centerfielder starting no later than April of 2006.