All things considered, I was more enthusiastic about the Cubs' signing of Aaron Miles when I thought he would be replacing Ronny Cedeno as a spare infielder than when I think of him as a replacement for Mark DeRosa.

Aaron Miles (643 Major League games)
.329 OBP / .364 SLG / 693 OPS / 77 OPS+ / 4.1 Runs Created per Game

Ronny Cedeno (329 games)
.289 OBP / .350 SLG / 639 OPS / 62 OPS+ / 3.2 Runs Created per Game

Mark DeRosa (893 games)
.348 OBP / .422 SLG / 780 OPS / 97 OPS+ / 5.2 Runs Created per Game

It has been pointed out that last year DeRosa set career highs for HR (21 vs. previous high of 13), RBI (87 vs. previous high of 74), OBP (.376 vs. previous high of 371), and OPS (857 vs. previous high of 813). It is also true that as DeRo closes in on his 34th birthday, it's likely he will see some regression from those best-ever numbers. But '08 also saw Miles set career highs in several categories, including the ever important on-base percentage, where Miles's .355 mark was well above his previous career best of .329.

Ironically, .329 is also the lifetime on-base percentage of the guy Miles may replace as Cubs leadoff man—Alfonso Soriano.

As I sit down to write this, Jake Peavy, Randy Johnson, Milton Bradley, Bobby Abreu and Raul Ibanez are not Chicago Cubs.

Mark DeRosa is not a Philadelphia Phillie.

Felix Pie is not a Baltimore Oriole.

Ronny Cedeno, Jason Marquis, Kevin Hart, Michael Wuertz, Angel Guzman and Sean Marshall are not San Diego Padres.

Kerry Wood is not a Cleveland Indian.

And though it falls outside the normal purview of this blog, I am proud to point out that I did not vote to keep the State of Illinois' Chief Narcissist and Sociopath in office the last time he ran.

The Cubs Tuesday night lost their first home game since May 17th, falling 7-5 to the Orioles in a game they trailed 7-1 as late as the home half of the 7th inning.

The bottom of the ninth was hard to take. The Cubs loaded the bases with none out against O's closer George Sherrill, but then Sherrill fanned Ronny Cedeño, Kosuke Fukudome, and pinch-hitter Henry Blanco in three especially ugly at-bats. The Cubs' historic home winning streak, their longest since July of 1936, was history.

The Cubs aren't the first team that Sherrill has shut down. The lefty now has 26 saves and opponents are hitting just .194 against him.

Sherrill is also not the first pitcher against whom Ronny Cedeño has looked feeble. After getting off to such a good start in 2008—through April, Cedeño was hitting .378/.451/.578 with 17 hits in 45 at-bats—Cedeño has looked overmatched and is hitting .203/.271/.219 with just 13 hits in his last 64 AB's.

Ted Lilly (7-5, 4.71) starts Wednesday night as the Cubs try to begin a new home winning streak against Baltimore's Brian Burres (6-5, 5.24).

Looking at the live box score of today's Padres/Cubs game, I was struck by how many elements in it looked completely preposterous.

Play along, and decide which of the following is the freakiest of all, because I can't:

• Ryan Theriot hitting over .300
• Ronny Cedeño hitting over .300
• Henry Blanco hitting over .300
• Theriot, Cedeño, and Blanco all hitting over .300
• Ryan Dempster delivering an 8 1/3-inning start
• And striking out 12
• And walking 1
• And lowering his ERA to 2.35
• And improving his record to 5-1
• The Cubs starting a centerfielder named Jim Edmonds
• And yeah, it's that Jim Edmonds

With this afternoon's 4-0 shutout, the Cubs are 25-16, which is the second-best record in baseball.

Compared to the other items in this post, that seems positively mundane.

The Cubs won their second game of the Spring on Monday, nearly coughing up a 6-2 ninth-inning lead against the Mariners, but holding on to win 6-5.

Jon Lieber was tagged for two runs and three hits in two innings of work as he returned to Cub pinstripes. Jeff Samardzija pitcher two scoreless relief innings and was credited with the victory.

At the plate, DH Jake Fox (double and a triple), Ronny Cedeno (3-for-5), and Ryan Theriot (2-for-3) led the way. Kosuke Fukudome went 0-for-2 and is now 1-for-7 in Cactus League play. Lou Piniella is considering letting Fukudome hit second to see if he is "more comfortable there."

Speaking of Fukudome, Chris Jaffe of the Hardball Times offered this note on Monday, which, in case you needed it, serves as a handy reminder of why the Cubs pursued the Japanese star so relentlessly over the winter:

"The 2007 Cubs had an historically large split between their righty and lefty bats. The former posted an impressive sOPS+ of 112, while the latter floundered at a replacement-level mark of 74.

"That 38-point edge in sOPS+ for right handers is the seventh-greatest in the last half century. In two-thirds of the team's at-bats, righties went .283/.345/.453 while their counterparts poked an ineffectual .248/.309/.358. Righties had an OPS similar to Miguel Tejada's 2007 while the southpaws hit as badly as Craig Biggio did in his swan song.

"Could be worse though—the 2005 Cubs had the fifth-biggest gap favoring righties."

(Okay, I'll come clean. I stole that headline from The Sporting News. Back in the early and middle '70s, when I used to read the magazine faithfully, the weekly report on each MLB team would end with a series of notes introduced by a cute, distinctive little subhead, e.g., "Twin-klings" for the Twins notes, "A's Acorns" for Oakland A's notes, "Bruin Briefs" for the Cubs, etc. So yes, I plagiarized the headline. Don't tell the Clinton campaign!)

– The Cubs have complemented Ryan Theriot and Ronny Cedeno by adding a third member to the Light-Hitting Middle Infielders Club.

– For all the talk of Kerry Wood as closer, Lou Piniella says he is not even the leading candidate for the job right now.

– On last night's WGN Sports Central show, David Kaplan was interviewing Ryan Dempster, the Cubs' resident practical joker. Kaplan told Dempster if he needed inspiration before planning his next prank, he should check out this comic triumph from the Land of Phillie.

– There may be a new, mean-spirited, bald-headed guy calling the shots at Tribune Company, but some things remain the same: the Cubbies just can't get enough of that courtroom action.