On his pre-game radio show Monday night, Lou Piniella said he felt the need to start cutting back on the number of appearances by his two ace relievers, Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood, and start finding opportunities to use Jon Lieber and Chad Fox.

As you know if you watched the 7-2 win over the Astros, Lou went 2-for-4:

Wood did get to rest, and Lieber did get to pitch (1 2/3 scoreless IP in relief of starter and winner Ted Lilly). But Fox remained idle, and Marmol was forced into action in the home half of the eighth, and it was nasty duty, at that. The Cubs were up 5-2, the Astros had men at first and third, none out, and Tejada, Berkman, and Lee were due up. A pop out, a strikeout, and a ground out later, the Astros were taking the field, and the lead remained safe (even safer after Aramis Ramirez's two-run homer in the top of the ninth). Another Marmol masterpiece.

Speaking of Ramirez, he and Derrek Lee went a combined 5-for-10 with 3 RBI on Monday night. This was a big turnaround from the weekend series against the Pirates, in which R. and L. went a combined 0-for-22. In fact, over the course of the just concluded homestand, the Cubs' two big sluggers didn't do much slugging at all.

Ramirez hit .257 with no homers and 4 RBI, Lee hit .171 with an OPS of 556, and yet the Cubs won 8 of 10.

Of course, over that same 10-game stretch, Alfonso Soriano hit .524/1.150/1674 (OBP/SLG/OPS) with 7 HR and 16 RBI, and lifted his batting average from .191 to .296. And Mark DeRosa hit .514/.645/1159. Fukudome, Soto, and Theriot, while posting less spectacular numbers, all held their own, so the offensive falloff by Ramirez and Lee didn't pose much of a problem.

Depth. It's good.

Tuesday morning update: So much for Chad Fox helping to shoulder the bullpen load. Fox has been placed on the 15-Day Disabled List after developing elbow tenderness. According to the Tribune...

Fox said trainer Mark O'Neal told him "it could take a week, it could take two weeks, it could take two months. Who knows?"

Fox's spot will be taken by Jose Ascanio, whom the Cubs acquired this past off-season from Atlanta in exchange for Will Ohman. Ascanio had a 2.29 ERA and 9 saves in 16 appearances for the I-Cubs.

And speaking of the I-Cubs, they've placed Rich Hill on the 7-Day DL as a result of back spasms that caused him to be pulled from a start last Friday, but Lou Piniella doesn't think the back spasms are serious, or maybe even the real issue at all. Again, from the Tribune...

“I don’t think it’s serious,” Piniella said. “Probably more of a mental break than anything, I’d assume. That’s just my assumption. [The break] may not be bad. It might be the best tonic of all. But I haven’t heard anything wrong of a serious nature, anything fundamentally wrong with his back.”

– All but two of the Cubs were able to make it through the first weekend of Spring Training without requiring the attention of a cardiologist or getting beaten up by a panhandler.

The exceptions were Mark DeRosa and Jose Ascanio.

DeRosa flew back to Chicago Monday to see a cardiologist after he experienced an irregular heartbeat on Saturday and spent Saturday night in a Mesa hospital.

According to Carrie Muskat's story at cubs.com, DeRosa has been aware of the irregular heartbeat since he was a teenager.

"I went through a gamut of tests when I was in high school to make sure it was nothing serious," (DeRosa) said. "It's never been a problem. I've been able to have certain techniques over the years that have got me out of the situation. It's never been an issue.

"The other day, it didn't get progressively worse but just lasted a lot longer," DeRosa said. "I needed some help to get me back to the right heartbeat. That's why the precautions were taken to go over to the hospital."

DeRosa expects the Chicago cardiologist to prescribe medication or recommend an unspecified "outpatient procedure" to help him deal with the problem.

Ascanio, meanwhile, was thumped outside a Scottsdale convenience store on Saturday night "by a guy who was looking for some money," according to Cubs manager Lou Piniella.

Ascanio's face and left eye were swollen after the incident and he was held out of workouts on Sunday. His status is day to day.

– Here's a swell Web site: Greg Rybarczyk's Hit Tracker, which lists the "true distance" of every Major League home run.

Rybarczyk, who holds a degree in mechanical engineering, determined that Aramis Ramirez hit the longest home run in all of Major League Baseball last season, a 495-foot shot off the Pirates' Paul Maholm on September 21st. Matt Murton had the Cubs' second longest homer of the year, a 449-foot blast off the Astros' Dave Borkowski on August 7th in Houston.

What makes the site doubly swell is the way Rybarczyk classifies each home run as "Just Enough," "No Doubt," or "Plenty" and tabulates the homers within each category. Alfonso Soriano paced the Cubs with 9 No Doubts in 2007; Derrek Lee led the team with 8 Just Enoughs.

What makes the site triply swell is that it offers links to mlb.com so you can see video footage of each longball.

– I'm no mechanical engineer, but by my calculations, this past weekend will be the last weekend without Cubs baseball until the conclusion of the regular season, the weekend of Sept. 27-28. Of course, the date will be even later if the Cubs are able to make the...oh, forget it.

I'm not going to risk jinxing it.

The Cubs traded left-handed reliever Will Ohman and recently acquired utility man Omar Infante to the Braves on Tuesday for aspirin-tablet-throwing, rookie reliever Jose Ascanio.

The Braves will use Ohman to fill the bullpen slot vacated by veteran lefty reliever, suburban Crestwood native, and one-time Cub Ron Mahay, who is in the process of departing Atlanta by way of free agency.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Braves General Manager Frank Wren contacted Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski in October to see if Infante was available in trade. Dombrowski, of course, wound up shipping Infante to the Cubs a couple weeks ago for Jacque Jones.

The Journal-Constitution's David O’Brien explains the Braves’ interest in Ohman thusly:

Ohman had a 4.33 ERA in 220 appearances over five seasons with the Cubs, with a road ERA more than four runs lower than at Chicago's Wrigley Field. His .233 career opponents' average includes a .196 by left-handed hitters.

The Braves believe he'll benefit getting away from Wrigley, where Ohman had a 6.63 ERA in 101 appearances. He has a 2.32 career ERA everywhere else.

"It's one thing if it's just one year," Wren said of the home/road disparity, "but when you see it consistently for the last three years ..."

Ohman had 1.45 ERA and .167 opponents' average in 29 road games last season, and an 8.66 ERA and .376 OA in 27 home games. In 2006, it was 1.73/.169 on the road, and 7.14/.252 at Wrigley.

Ohman's career numbers against the Braves might also have added to his appeal: 10 K, 2.08 ERA in 8.2 IP.

Of Ascanio, meanwhile, O’Brien writes:

The Cubs liked hard-throwing Ascanio, 22, who had 84 strikeouts with 24 walks in 94 innings in 2007, including 13 strikeouts in 16 innings for Atlanta after a promotion from Class AA.

"Ascanio was hard to give up," Wren said, "but the way we looked at it, if we could fill needs with two guys we need, it was something we should do."

The Braves have had concerns about Ascanio's chronic back problems, though he seemed to have it under control last season.

In an interview aired earlier this evening on Comcast Sports Night, Cubs GM Jim Hendry said the team sees the Venezuelan Ascanio as someone who could play a role in the Cubs bullpen this season.

I wonder if he voted Sunday.