Technically, Carlos Marmol got the save in last night’s game, in spite of taking years off Cubs fans’ lives and filling cardiac wards across Chicago. Before the season, Marmol was projected to have somewhere around a mid-three ERA and be worth about 1.8 wins above replacement.

As it turns out, his ERA actually is around the mid-threes, standing at 3.53 before last night. But Marmol’s fielding-independent pitching (”FIP”) is up at 4.38. He’s walking one batter for every 1.25 he strikes out - the NL average is around 1:2. So Marmol’s control has not been encouraging. And he’s only been worth .2 wins so far this season, instead of the well over one the Cubs were expecting.

The Cubs have a couple of options about what to do with him, though. First, Marmol may very well have options left, in which case he could be sent down to Iowa to work out his control issues a little. Even if he doesn’t have options left, it isn’t hard to believe a guy who’s walking as many as he is is injured, so the Cubs could DL him and send him on a rehab assignment, if they so desired.

Second, the Cubs could basically do nothing. So far this seems to be Lou Piniella’s solution, given that he let Marmol close tonight and let him stay in the game even though he nearly coughed it up. To be fair, with a good player, sometimes you have to ride out a bad streak. If Lou had listened to the fans Micah Hoffpauir would be starting over Derrek Lee, and the Cubs would be several games back of the Cardinals this morning instead of tied for first. And Marmol definitely earned a chance to work out the kinks in his game with the performances he put up in the last two seasons.

Furthermore, there’s a line of argument that says with Marmol prone to performances that are either lights-out or awful, you might as well use him in close games. This Hardball Times article from last season when he was struggling details the theory. Basically, if you bring him into a game where you have a comfortable lead, Marmol’s ability to walk three men without every throwing a strike can cost you the entire lead. If you bring him into a situation where the game is tied and you really need a zero on the board, it sucks if he gives up three runs, but you were probably going to lose if you gave up one, too, so the other two runs are mostly irrelevant.

But that theory was premised on Marmol just being “shaky,” and I’m not sure he’s “shaky” anymore. I don’t think the Cubs necessarily need to move him to low-leverage situations, but I think they need to do something. That brings me to option three. The first thing I would do is simply use him less. Right now he’s not helping the team very much. Let him get more work in on the side and work with Rothschild to figure out why his command is so bad. He just doesn’t have great control in the first place, so he’s always going to walk a lot of batters. But if he can’t start walking way fewer, there’s going to be less need for him.

Furthermore, the Cubs don’t need Marmol quite as much now as they did earlier this year. This season Angel Guzman and Sean Marshall have both stepped up to be decent out of the pen. Either of them could be used in an eighth-inning role. I’m not sure I’d want to use them in a “fireman” sort of role, asking them to get batters out with men on base (although Lou has brought Marshall in to those situations), but for the most part, if either of them starts an inning with a lead, he’s going to leave with that lead.

In the meantime, Marmol can pitch every few days, but he can work more on the side. I’m not sure if it’s his mechanics or what, but right now he’s throwing too many balls in game situations, and until he fixes it, he needs to be given less chances to hurt the Cubs.