Ryan Dempster’s broken toe from celebrating a win isn’t the most unusual injury I can think of. That goes to Glenallen Hill for being out several games after he put himself through a glass of table during a dream that spiders were crawling all over him. But it does leave the Cubs in a little bit of a lurch. Dempster has probably been the fourth-best starter on the Cubs this season, but he’s pitched well (4.09 ERA, 4.32 FIP in 105.2 IP). The options to replace him are not great.

Kevin Hart will get the first shot tomorrow, and he’s pitched well in Iowa this season - his 3.10 ERA and 3.86 FIP at Iowa translate to a 4.43 FIP in the majors, just slightly worse than Dempster has been. And he’s projected for a 5.60 ERA in the majors the rest of this season — not great, but acceptable for a fifth starter.

Jeff Samardzija is another option. His Iowa stats are worse - 3.72 ERA and 4.64 FIP, which translates into a 5.40 FIP in the majors - obviously, he’d be a significant downgrade. His projections don’t really agree, though, projecting just a 5.65 ERA in spite of the big difference in other stats from Hart.

The third option would be Esmailin Caridad. He’s got a 4.18 ERA and 4.72 FIP. The translation there is for a 5.43 FIP in the majors. I don’t have a rest-of-season projection from him, but from the beginning of the season he was projected to post a 5.74 ERA in the majors.

The fourth option, of course, would be to move Sean Marshall back to the starting rotation. That would be more difficult in the short term - he’s not stretched out at all, and he hasn’t pitched more than 25 pitches in an outing for a full month. But the benefit is that he’s been a major league starter before, and he’s good at it. He’s projected to have a 4.79 ERA the rest of the season, not very much higher than what you’d expect from Dempster. He wasn’t doing great as a starter, but he didn’t lose his job because he was bad, he lost it because Randy Wells has been outstanding. If I had my way, I’d move him back into the rotation.

Of course, Lou loves having a lefty in the pen, and with Neal Cotts out for the season with Tommy John surgery, the Cubs are spread thin as far as lefties go. John Gaub was striking people out in AA well enough to earn a promotion to AAA, and he promptly hurt his elbow and was placed on the disabled list. That leaves Casey Fossum, James Russell and Jeremy Papelbon as the potential lefties the Cubs could call up if they moved Marshall into the rotation. Fossum is probably the best choice. Papelbon was just promoted from AA, where he was very good, but not great, although he did handle lefties very nicely. Russell has been good, but he doesn’t get lefties out the way Papelbon does. Fossum, however, was a recent acquisition for the Cubs, and while a former major-leaguer playing in the minors probably doesn’t have much left, he’s been pretty good against lefties in his career. Plus, if having Casey Fossum pitch out of the bullpen is what it takes to get the Cubs to move Marshall back into the rotation, it’s worth it.