Written by Larry Granillo | 13 July 2009

For those of you watching the Cubs-Cardinals game on ESPN last night - and I was definitely *not* one of you; I don't exactly need to hear Joe Morgan and Jon Miller talk about the Cubs or the rivalry with the Cards - you saw a pretty interesting maneuver by Chicago's Lou Piniella:

The second game featured some unusual maneuvering by Cubs manager Lou Piniella in the ninth inning. With no outs and the bases loaded, Piniella moved left-handed reliever Sean Marshall to left for one batter and moved him back to the mound to face left-handed hitter Skip Schumaker.

"We did what we had to do to try to keep the game in check and it worked," said Piniella.

Must've been fun to watch, aside from the hemming-and-hawing that I'm sure Joe, Jon, and Steve went into.

As fascinating as this was last night, though, it wasn't the first time this has happened. And it definitely wasn't the longest parade of position switches for pitchers. Actually, I wrote about this same thing only two months ago. The best story is a 1986 game between the Mets and Reds, when Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell shuttled between the outfield and the mound (and between the two outfield corners) for a couple of innings. There's also a couple of good stories about Fernando Valenzuela playing in both the outfield and at first base in separate games. Check it out: Forget About Non-Pitchers Pitching, How About Pitchers Playing the Field?.