Piniella: Clinch, then talk about it
Cubs manager Lou Piniella would just as soon stop all this talk of his team clinching the National League Central.
"We're in a position, obviously, to get ourselves into postseason, but we've still got some work to do," he said Wednesday.
The Cubs entered the night with a magic number of 4 to win their second straight division title, and Piniella was asked about the advantages of getting it done early.
"It gives us a chance to rest our team," he said before switching gears."I don't like all this talk of clinching until we clinch, I'll be honest with you. I like to get things done, and then we can talk about all the positives of it. There certainly are positives. Let's just play this thing out and get ourselves to the point where we want to be, and then I can give you all the positives and all the negatives."
The proof: When center fielder Jim Edmonds signed with the Cubs in May after being let go by the Padres, he talked of still having things to prove in the game. So far, so good.
"I think so," Edmonds said. "In an ideal world, I'd like to have played a little bit more. But I might not be in the situation where I'm getting to play as much as I did in the past. I think I've played all right. I would have liked to have played a little bit better and put up some bigger numbers. But I'll just take it the way it is right now and enjoy this ride."
Mark your calendar: Milwaukee, Houston and Chicago all are linked together again. No, it has nothing to do with a hurricane or conspiracy theories.
It's just that the Cubs will open the 2009 season in Houston April 6 and then head to Milwaukee for three before opening the home season April 13 against Colorado.
Major League Baseball released the schedules of all 30 teams Wednesday. The Cubs will play the White Sox during a midweek series, June 16-18, and then head to the South Side for weekend series June 26-28.
The interleague schedule includes home games against the Twins and Indians in June and a road series at Detroit June 23-25. The Cubs will close out at home with the Pirates and Diamondbacks, with Pittsburgh coming here Sept. . 29-Oct. 1 and the D'Backs ringing out the year Oct. 2-4.
The season begins later because of the World Baseball Classic in March.
No-go Gaudin: Lou Piniella said reliever Chad Gaudin threw Tuesday and that the results weren't all that great. Gaudin hasn't pitched since Aug. 29 because of lower-back soreness.
"He threw yesterday and it wasn't really good," Piniella said. "So-so was the way it was categorized to me. That's the first time he had faced hitters in awhile. We're going to get him to face hitters again in the next day or two, and then we'll go from there."