With the calendar turning to September, every little bump and bruise to players on contending teams is going to be agonized over in the next three weeks. The Cubs held Carlos Zambrano out of his start yesterday with a sore triceps in order to preserve his arm, but even with such a routine move they feel the need to defend themselves in public and assure Cubs' fans that there's nothing wrong with the Big Z. ''He's not in any pain at all,'' Rothschild said. ''He's gone through this [arm fatigue] every year for the last four or five years. His arm feels tired. But he was feeling better today. He threw long toss [Saturday] and again [Sunday], and he feels a lot better.''
With the way Zambrano's worn down the past two years and the big lead they've built up (Baseball Prospectus says they're a 99.8 percent certainty to make the playoffs), making sure players like him are healthy is a huge priority right now for a team like the Cubbies. They're the overwhelming favorites in the NL, which means they get to spend a month resting up while talking heads wonder if they can maintain their "edge." And then they'll roll over the D'backs in the first round, but no one will wonder why we wasted a month worrying about nothing.
