Craig, this is no time to start managing

Just a few weeks into his Cubs' tenure in 2007, Lou Piniella exasperatedly answered a postgame question with a very long sigh and then said, "Look. This is no push-button operation here."

Lou had realized far earlier than he expected, just what a mess of a roster he was put in charge of. Lou being Lou, he figured it out, pushed a very mediocre team to the playoffs that year, then turned a pretty good team into a very good one in 2008 (before they Dempstered in the playoffs) and hell, he even had a winning record in his next year, the first time the Cubs had back-to-back-to-back winning seasons since Leo Durocher's boys.

What Craig Counsell has this year is actually kind of a push button operation. Not in the worst possible way, but also not in the best possible way. He's got a decent to good player to play at every position and a bench that he mostly tries to ignore.

But as the Cubs spin their wheels in the NL Central while the Brewers putter by on a Vespa designed to look like a Klement's Polish sausage, Craig is starting to get the itch.

We want him to do something!

He wants to do something!

But there's only so much he can do. So when he gets his hands on versatile mediocrity Willi Mays Castro he puts him in the lineup every day for the first five games he has him, and at four different positions, just for fun. It makes Craig feel like he's doing something. But it's not really doing much of anything.

He'd like to shake up his starting rotation, but the Cubs don't have six or seven possible starters. They have three and a Colin Rea, so there's not much to do there.

He's got an interchangeable group of old relievers who can't strike anybody out leading up to Brad Keller and Daniel Palencia, who can, so the most he can really do out there is pick which soft tossing geriatric gets to try to survive the sixth inning.

I do think it would cool if Drew Pomeranz ever gets out of a big jam again, they celebrate in the dugout by dumping a bucket of Ensure on him.

So, with a desire to shake things up, what's a guy to do?