Piniella asks for players' feedback

Imagine being able to tell your boss what you thought of how he or she was doing things.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella gave his players that chance Saturday during a rare team meeting.

Piniella called a 15-minute meeting at 3:45 p.m., a little over two hours before the Cubs lost 3-2 to the White Sox. Topic A was moving on from Carlos Zambrano's dugout tantrum and suspension of Friday.

"This was a time I felt we needed to talk about some things," Piniella said. "We had very open discussion where players got involved. I'm not going to divulge what we talked about, but one of the things we did was the fallout from yesterday."

Piniella said he opened the floor for player input.

"They had some things like posting the (next day's) lineup at a little earlier times," Piniella said. "The whole thing here basically is to stick together and to play hard and be aggressive and take it to the other team.

"Yesterday was an unfortunate thing. It shouldn't have happened, but we got to go forward."

Piniella explained part of his rationale for seeking criticism.

"I've been doing this for 23 years," he said of managing. "It's changed a lot. What I want is what's best for this organization. If I could do something better to help them win more baseball games, I'm all for it."

Players said despite the loss, they felt a difference.

"Everybody had a good attitude," said starting pitcher Carlos Silva. "We lost today, but we had a little fun.

"I think what we need is to get together a little more. Today, with this meeting, if we don't get together and play as a team, we're never going to do it. But today, it was a little bit different. We lost, but we looked like a team today."

Roster moves: The Cubs selected right-handed reliever Brian Schlitter from Class AAA Iowa and optioned reliever Jeff Stevens to Iowa.

Lou Piniella and assistant general manager Randy Bush said the Cubs needed a fresh arm. They blamed the move on Carlos Zambrano's 1-inning performance Friday.

"Schlitter's pitching great," Bush said. "He deserved the opportunity. He pitched himself into this opportunity as a nonroster guy.

"As happy as we are for him, we're disappointed that we had to send Stevens out. That's a direct result of Carlos' absence yesterday. Nobody in the organization is happy we had to send out a young man who's doing the job, pitching well. It's upsetting to have to deliver the message to somebody who's doing the job because the other guy pitched 1 inning yesterday and put us in a bad spot with our bullpen."

Schlitter is a Park Ridge native and Maine South graduate the Cubs obtained from the Phillies organization in a 2008 trade for Scott Eyre. At Iowa, the 24-year-old Schlitter was 1-1 with 12 saves and a 4.09 ERA.

"To grow up a Cubs fan, follow them, I never thought this day would come," he said. "It's a happy moment in my life."