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player ready...Shortstop Shawon Dunston is appealing the two-game suspension he received Thursday for slapping Colorado second-baseman Jason Bates on the head last week.
“I respect the National League. They’ve got to do what they think is best to stop people from fighting,” Dunston said. “But I’ve got to do what I feel I’ve got to do to protect myself.”
Dunston slapped Bates’ helmet after the Colorado second baseman slid wide to the home plate side of second base on a steal Sunday.
“When you look at the play again, you’ll see it’s a clean slide if that’s a double play,” Dunston said. “But it wasn’t a double play. It was a steal. I don’t want to have to stand in there and tear my knee up just to prove I’m right.”
NL president Leonard S. Coleman Jr. suspended Dunston for two games and fined him an undisclosed amount for instigating a bench-clearing incident.
The Cubs and Dunston said they will appeal the decision in July when the team travels to New York to play the Mets. Dunston is free to play until the appeal is heard.
Hurting and healing: The Cubs flip-flopped a pair of left-handed relievers. Larry Casian went on the 15-day disabled list with tendinitis. Chris Nabholz was activated a month after going down with a lower back strain. Casian is the seventh Cubs pitcher to go on the DL after the abbreviated spring training.
Second chance: One day after getting a late break and getting thrown out at home trying to score the winning run on a wild pitch, catcher Todd Pratt was on base again for another wild pitch. It came in the sixth inning, with Pratt on second. Mark Leiter’s pitch was so wild that Pratt easily scampered to third. A faster runner might have scored all the way from second, but Pratt held and later scored the winning run on a Brian McRae single.