Giants fans have been spoiled, I guess. Tim Lincecum goes out and wins two Cy Young Awards in his first three seasons, yet many have found fault in his 11-5 record and 3.15 ERA heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Cubs.

What’s to be worried about? He’s only striking out one less batter per nine innings than he was last year and has the same walk rate as he did in his first Cy Young season.

He’s fine! Seriously, he’s fine.

We’re all fine.

Then Kosuke Fukudome hits a three-run, 416-foot blast into McCovey Cove off Lincecum in the first inning last night and you realize he’s not fine. He’s far from fine. He’s Kosuke-f’n-Fukudome-just-hit-a-towering-416-foot-home-run-off-him not fine.

There is no shortage of reasons why Lincecum is struggling right now: He’s getting behind hitters, his command comes and goes, he’s tinkering with his windup too much and his changeup often bounces two feet in front of home plate instead of finding Buster Posey’s catcher mitt.

He’s struggling. He needs a barber. He’s out of whack. He’s in a funk. Please cut that thing, Tim.

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Did you think the Phillies were just going to lie back and let the Braves take the NL East from them? You did? Well then you, my friend, were wrong. Dead wrong.

According to FOX 26 in Houston, the Phillies have a deal in place for Astros’ starter Roy Oswalt and are waiting for the pitcher to sign off on it. He needs to waive his no-trade clause before any deal goes through, but unless he really, really likes the Beer Can House (it’s made of cans! Cans, I tell ya!), then there’s little doubt that Oswalt is on his way out of Houston.

Apparently the two sides have agreed on the amount of money that the Astros will take back in the deal and the two teams have agreed on the players that the Phillies will have to give up. Who those players are nobody knows, but J.A. Happ is probably one of them.

Speaking of Happ, it was rumored yesterday that he may have been involved in a deal that would have sent him to the Cubs in exchange for Ted Lilly. But obviously if the Phillies acquire Oswalt, Lilly would be dropped from Philly’s plans like a (insert clichéd line here).

More on this story as it develops.

Well, it’s certainly not Roy Oswalt but the Phillies appear to be on the verge of acquiring a starter as the trade deadline nears.

Fanhouse.com’s Ed Price is reporting via his Twitter page that a possible Ted Lilly-for-J.A.-Happ deal could be in the works, although nothing is confirmed as of now.

The 34-year-old Lilly has posted a 3.69 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 18 starts this season and would give the Phillies the middle-of-the-rotation arm that they so desperately need down the stretch. (Too bad Lilly can’t fix their offensive woes.)

Happ is 1-0 with a 1.76 ERA and nine Ks at the big league level this year. He also has 12 walks and his WHIP is 1.63, but he’s a young lefty with plenty of talent. If he could figure out his command troubles, a change of scenery might do him good.

We’ll see if the two clubs can work a deal out.

Things can’t get much worse for the Cubs right now. They’re currently nine games below .500, 9.5 games out of first place in a weak NL Central and I hear Lou Piniella also forgot to reorganize his Netflix queue and is now stuck with “Dear John” again after he just rented it from Blockbuster.

But much to the elation of the Cubs’ front office, Derrek Lee is hitting .292 this month after batting a crisp .237 in June. That’s good news for the soon-to-be-rebuilding Cubs because that makes Lee a little more attractive to potential trade suitors. He might still be hitting like Neifi Perez, but he isn’t Todd Hundley at the moment either.

I’m not around Cubs’ GM Jim Hendry enough (or at all for that matter) to know what his plans are at the trade deadline, but one can only assume that he’d like to unload Lee seeing as how the first baseman won’t be a part of the club’s future plans. His contract runs up at the end of the year, so if Hendry can acquire a couple of prospects in exchange for Lee, I’d have to imagine he’d pull the trigger.

That is, of course, unless Lee refuses to accept a trade, which according to ESPNChicago.com appears to be the case.

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According to ESPN Chicago, former Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez will be one of the candidates interviewed by the Cubs to replace Lou Piniella at the end of the season. Piniella announced his retirement yesterday, which will be effective immediately following the season.

Gonzalez, who was fired by the Marlins on June 24, has a long personal and professional relationship with Cubs general manager Jim Hendry stemming from the time they worked together with the Marlins.

Gonzalez, who has interviewed with the Cubs in the past, is the consensus top choice to replace Bobby Cox as manager of the Atlanta Braves, according to multiple baseball sources.

If I were to put on my prediction hat (which is essentially the sleeve off one of my old T-shirts that I fashioned into a hat), I’d say that Gonzalez winds up in Atlanta and Ryne Sandberg (photo) replaces Piniella in Chicago. Sandberg has been craving the Cubs’ job for a couple of years now. He wants it. He needs it. He wants to make sweet, sweet managerial love to it.

Of course, hiring Sandberg (who was a mega fan favorite in Chicago, which is about 10 notches above just a regular fan favorite in case you were wondering) makes too much sense. And nothing Cubs’ management does every makes sense.

The New York Daily News is reporting that Cubs’ skipper Lou Piniella will retire at the end of the 2010 season.

The 67-year-old Piniella, who led the Cubs to NL Central division titles in 2007 and 2008, is in the last year of his contract and has endured a particularly stressful last two seasons in which so many of his high-paid players, including outfielder Alfonso Soriano, third baseman Aramis Ramirez and pitcher Carlos Zambrano have underperformed to their salaries. This year, the Cubs are mired in fourth place, 10 1/2 games back and Piniella, who is in the last year of his contract, wanted to end to the speculation about his future for the good of the organization.

Earlier this season, he had to suspend Zambrano after the volatile pitcher got into a dugout fight with teammate Derrek Lee in the middle of a game. Last year, Piniella had numerous similar confrontations with temperamental outfielder Milton Bradley, who was traded to the Seattle Mariners last winter.

While Piniella has been one of the most successful managers in baseball history, there’s no doubt that the Cubs need to go in another direction at the end of the year. Their struggles this season can hardly be pinned on Piniella and Piniella alone, but it’s clear that his style has run its course on the North side of Chicago.

Speculation continues to grow that former Cub Ryne Sandberg will take over as the club’s next manager. He has stated that managing the Cubs is his ideal job and after moving through the minor league ranks over the past four seasons, it appears that he’s suited for the position as well. We’ll see what management decides after the season.

Getting back to “Sweet Lou,” this wasn’t the way he wanted to go out (i.e. marred in fourth place in a weak NL Central) but the timing is right. The Cubs will be undergoing a lot of changes this offseason and Piniella isn’t the right fit for a (potentially) young club that needs a lot of massaging.

According to Jon Paul Morosi and Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, Cubs’ first baseman Derrek Lee may be willing to waive his no-trade clause in the right deal.

Derrek Lee has remained noncommittal on the issue of his no-trade clause. But some friends of the Cubs first baseman said this week that they believe he would accept a deal to the right team.

And if the Cubs formally decide to sell, it’s hard to imagine a better fit than the Angels.

The Angels, 4.5 games back in the American League West, are still looking for an upgrade at first base because of Kendry Morales’ season-ending injury. And they prefer someone who isn’t under contract for next season.

Why? They plan to pursue Carl Crawford as a free agent and would like to have the flexibility of sliding Bobby Abreu into a DH role once Morales returns to first.

The article notes that Lee lives in California during the off-season and would “probably be comfortable” playing in Anaheim. He’d also have the opportunity to play for a contender, which the Cubs are definitely, positively not.

Assuming he’s willing to waive his no-trade clause, then a trade to the Angels makes a lot of sense for all parties involved. The Halos need a replacement for Morales in order to try and keep up with the Rangers in the AL West, while the Cubs could take the opportunity to restock their farm system.

That said, it’s unknown if the two teams have even had trade discussions involving Lee yet, so we’ll have to see if this story develops.

It’s always fun to take a look back and see how many faulty predictions members of the media got wrong in the preseason. It’s even more fun when you look back at your own faulty predictions and provide people the opportunity to all you a moron by laying out how wrong you were.

Now that we’ve reached the halfway point in the 2010 MLB season, let’s see how my preseason predictions are holding up. (Click on the links provided to read the entire preseason prediction for that division.)

AL East

My Predictions: Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Blue Jays.
Current Standings: Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles.

Not too bad, although I thought that the O’s would be more competitive and without Roy Halladay, I thought the Jays would sink to the bottom of the division. I also underestimated the Rays a tad, but there’s still a lot of baseball to be played. It’ll be interesting to see if Tampa can stay ahead of the Red Sox, Tigers, Twins and Angels in the AL Wild Card race.

AL Central

My Predictions: White Sox, Twins, Tigers, Royals, Indians.
Current Standings: White Sox, Tigers, Twins, Royals, Indians.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, the White Sox were making me look like a bigger clown then I already am. But they’ve been on fire recently, winning eight in a row and nine of their last 10. The problem of course, is that Jake Peavy appears to be done for the season with a nasty back injury, so who knows how the Sox’s rotation will hold up in the second half. The rest of my predictions look good, although as I wrote in my preview of this division, the Central is a crapshoot.

AL West

My Predictions: Angels, Mariners, Rangers, A’s.
Current Standings: Rangers, Angels, A’s, Mariners.

Yeee-ikes. I missed badly on the Rangers, who have been the biggest surprise in the AL so far, and I also drank the Kool Aid on the Mariners before the season. I thought that Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee would make up for their shit-show of an offense, but I was wrong – way wrong. The Angels are only 4.5 games back of Texas and therefore could still win the division, but the Rangers are far and away the better team and I don’t think they’ve relinquish the lead. I need a mulligan for this division.

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