No no no no no

Last year, with Soriano injured in August, the Cubs put in a waiver claim on Scott Podsednik, only for him to be (mercifully) pulled back. I covered at the time how much I hated this idea.

Well, Podsednik's name is coming up. Again. At least this time it seems more like a rumor (I'm putting the blame on you, Troy E. Renck of the Denver Post):

Renck says the Cubs might have renewed interest if Jim Edmonds doesn't work out. He says the Cubs have a "working list of potential available left-handed bats" as a contingency plan. One other Cubs-Rockies note - Ken Rosenthal says that despite his initial report, the Cubs do not have interest in Brian Fuentes.

Dear God. Edmonds, for the record, is hitting .297/.333/.500 as a Cub, and that's before he went 2-for-4 with a double today. He's also got 14 RBI in 22 games, which is nothing to sneeze at. And, most importantly, he's not Scott Podsednik.

Podsednik's stats this year? .222/.311/.311. He doesn't have a single number that isn't fucking terrible. Seriously, look at this guy's career stats - he sucks. He's so bad it's not even funny. The only thing he can do is steal bases, and he can only do that if he can get on base - and guess what he has been absolutely terrible at doing in four of the last five years? Some of that might be injury-related, but come on. A .299 OBP in 214 at-bats last year? If your entire game is based around getting on base, you are worthless with an OBP like that.

Fortunately it looks like Edmonds has started to hit, and pretty well - in his last twelve starts, he has seven games of two hits or more, and he saved the Cubs' butts in the 1948 game (I had to link to this clip eventually, right?). Hopefully that will keep any dalliances with Podsednik in the rumor stage. I guess maybe if you can get him for free, maybe I wouldn't be furious. But if Hendry trades anything for that guy at any point, I am going to mail him a bag of poop. (Oh, and "The Cubs don't have interest in Brian Fuentes?" Thank fucking God.)

In much more exciting news, the Cubs took two of three from the Blue Jays up in Toronto, with a strong start from Marquis on Saturday (beating Roy Halladay) and a somewhat shaky (five walks) but passable start from Lilly on Sunday. Even Gallagher didn't look that bad on Friday; he just didn't get much run support. Lee finally woke up, going 5-for-8 in the two wins, his first two multi-hit games since May 30. Ramirez hit his first home run since May 26 (10th overall). And the Cubs averaged 5 runs per game against one of the stingiest staffs in baseball. All in all, not a bad start to life without Soriano, but it doesn't get any easier, heading off to Tampa for a series starting Tuesday (and having to squeeze in the Hall of Fame Game on Monday in Cooperstown, although I don't expect the starters will see a lot of time in that game). Right now, though, I sure can't complain.