Instead of picking up his 100th win on Sunday, Ryan Dempster was handed his 100th loss. Ruben Tejada drove in five, Ike Davis belted a two-run homer and Jon Niese helped himself by hitting two RBI singles to lift the Mets to an 18-5 victory over the Cubs.

Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez notched his 1,600th career hit with an RBI single in the first inning Sunday and picked up No. 1,601 with a two-run homer in the third.

In the eighth inning Saturday, the Cubs had runners on first and second and none out against the Mets, and rookie Starlin Castro was at the plate.

All Xavier Nady needed was more playing time. Nady has hit safely in 12 of his last 14 games, batting .373, and in 20 of his last 21 starts since Aug. 8, hitting .350 in that stretch.

Cubs starting pitchers may be pulled a little earlier in games in the final four weeks of the season to give the bullpen more opportunities.

Cubs pitcher Carlos Silva is looking forward to Tuesday's start, his first since Aug. 1. "I feel very good, I feel great," Silva said Sunday. "My arm, my velocity, I feel really good."

Carlos Zambrano has been reborn. Big Z, who moved into third on the Cubs' all-time K's list, won for the fourth time since rejoining the rotation in Saturday's 5-3 win over the Mets.

Carlos Zambrano passed Kerry Wood and moved into sole possession of third place on the Cubs' all-time strikeout list Saturday when he fanned the Mets' Angel Pagan in the fifth inning.

The Cubs have tweaked their rotation, and rookie Casey Coleman will start Monday in the series opener against the Astros and be followed by Carlos Silva.

Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro is ranked in the top three in the National League in batting average at .321, has 36 multihit games and has played more games in the Major Leagues than at Class A.

The Cubs know Alfonso Soriano can hit home runs. Blake DeWitt is surprising them. Soriano and DeWitt each belted three-run homers to lift the Cubs to a 7-6 victory Friday over the New York Mets.

Geovany Soto, sidelined because of some fluid and swelling in his right knee, was back in the Cubs' lineup Friday, as was center fielder Marlon Byrd.

With Tom Gorzelanny unavailable, the Cubs have tweaked their rotation and will have Carlos Zambrano (6-6, 4.36 ERA) start Saturday and Ryan Dempster (12-9, 3.71 ERA) on Sunday in the series against the New York Mets. Carlos Silva could return Monday.

Cubs general manager Jim Hendry, who met this past week with managerial candidate Ryne Sandberg, said there is no front-runner for the Cubs' job and he is still in the early stages of the interview process.

It's only Towson ... It's only Towson ... It's only Towson.

But ...

Indiana football did have reasons to be pleased with Thursday night's easy 51-17 victory over the Tigers in the season opener at Memorial Stadium.

Let's talk about the good things first:

1. DARIUS WILLIS (14 carries, 102 yards, 2 touchdowns)
If Willis is healthy and running the ball hard, it only makes IU's defense that much more difficult to stop. Thursday night, Willis ran hard. There were a couple of plays that really highlighted that fact. Late in the first half, IU had the ball at the Towson 22 and Willis went up the middle and appeared to be stopped for no gain or possibly even a loss of a yard or two. But he changed directions and found a seam in the middle breaking to the right and wound up gaining 8 yards on the play. He also had the big 49 yard touchdown run in the first quarter to put IU up 14-0. He turned a play that didn't look like it was going to amount to a lot and all of sudden he was running away. It just one season and one game, Willis now has three touchdowns of 45 yards or more.

2. TED BOLSER (4 catches, 68 yards, 1 touchdown)
Last year the most yards a tight end gained in any game was 37. Bolser had more than that in the first quarter. He's a big target over the middle and just looks like the kind of kid that with four years of college could play on Sundays. His first catch was a touchdown. The last time an IU player's first catch was a touchdown was Damarlo Belcher in 2008. Bolser's second catch he went up high for a ball and took a hard hit but held on. He later caught a 21 yard pass from Dusty Kiel. It's early to anoint Bolser as a phenom but this is a kid who really has a chance to be good.

3. THREE PICKS, THREE TOUCHDOWNS
Tyler Replogle had the second interception of his career (the other was Akron last year) and that led to IU's first touchdown. Mitchell Evans picked up the third interception of his career (the first two came in the his first collegiate game) and that led to Willis's touchdown to make it 14-0. The third interception was by Matt Ernest and he returned it 56 yards for a touchdown. In addition, IU got a blocked punt by Kevin Bush that came on an odd play. It was a bad snap, and the right-legged punter tried to punt it with his left leg on the run and hit a line drive right into Bush. Two plays later Willis scored his second touchdown of the game. And one other big play came after Towson scored a touchdown to make it 17-7. The Tigers tried an onside kick and IU recovered. It was recovered by Griffen Dahlstrom, a redshirt freshman.

4. BOTH KICKERS GET A CHANCE --- AND BOTH ARE SOLID
Nick Freeland kicked off during the game and was the first kicker to get a shot field goal and extra point wise. he hit a 24 yard field goal in the first quarter to make it 17-0 and a 36-yarder in the 3rd quarter to make it 41-14. He also made five extra points. Mitch Ewald made IU's final extra point and also hit a 32-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to make it 51-17.

5. THREE QB'S SEE ACTION
Ben Chappell played two and a half quarters. Dusty Kiel played about a quarter and Ed Wright-Baker saw action in the final period. Chappell was 16-of-23 for 182 yards and two scores. Kiel was 1-of-5 for 21 yards. Wright-Baker was 1-of-2 for 2 yards. None of IU's three quarterbacks was sacked.

Now for the things that are a bit of a concern:

1. IU DIDN'T HAVE AN ANSWER FOR CHRIS HART
Hart looked a lot like Kellen Lewis at times, especially in the first half. He had a 52 yard run that set up a touchdown. He also threw a really nice 64 yard touchdown pass where there was clearly a breakdown in the IU defensive secondary. Hart finished with 123 yards rushing and 165 yards passing. His passing numbers weren't that good though considering he was 16-of-35 and had three costly picks.

2. NO SACKS FOR THE DEFENSE
The pressure was OK at times but with Hart being so elusive in the backfield the defense never got a sack. Sorry but playing against a Division I-AA (FCS) you've got to get a couple of sacks.

3. IU WAS 6-FOR-6 IN THE RED ZONE BUT ...
Only three of those scores were touchdowns. That was IU's problem a year ago, it simply couldn't score enough touchdowns in the red zone. I'm guessing that will be a point of emphasis in the 16 days before the Western Kentucky game.

4. 2-OF-10 ON THIRD DOWN CONVERSIONS
Towson was just 4-of-16 but 20 percent against a Division I-AA??? You would just think it would have to be better than that. It's hard to find too much fault in a 51-17 result but 20 percent third down conversions seems like a troublesome statistic.

So that's a quick look by at the opener with Towson. For those of you who saw it on the Big Ten Network what were your first impressions of the Hoosiers?

Follow Terry Hutchens at twitter.com/indystar_hutch

Cubs pitcher Tom Gorzelanny's has a small incomplete hairline fracture underneath the fingernail of his left pinky finger, which is stable. However, the left-hander will miss his next start.

Reliever Scott Maine nearly died five years ago in a car accident. Today, the rookie hurler is realizing his dream of playing in the big leagues.

Why did the Cubs deal Ted Lilly and Derrek Lee? That's one of the questions in this week's Cubs Inbox.

At first glance, Indiana football fans would have to be pretty happy with the way the divisions played out as announced by the Big Ten Wednesday night.

Consider:

*** IU will play Purdue every year and in the final regular season game which was something that was clearly up in the air. IU AD Fred Glass said he didn't know for sure that the game would be the final regular season game until early Wednesday morning.

*** IU is also in the same division with Illinois, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin. There wasn't going to be any way around the fact that IU was going to get in the same division with three pretty good programs. The other three could have been Nebraska, Michigan and Iowa. Michigan is down but will be back up so I think that's all pretty much a wash.

*** IU's protected out-of-division opponent is Michigan State. This could have been much worse. Among the other possibilities were Nebraska, Michigan or Iowa. Only having to play those programs every couple of years won't be bad in terms of competitive balance for the Hoosiers. In 2011 and 2012, IU won't play Michigan or Nebraska. As for Michigan State, the Spartans aren't a slouch but they don't have the same aura as those other programs.

*** The best news for Indiana may be that divisions are only in play for football. There are no basketball divisions planned at this time. Can you imagine a basketball division that would have included Ohio State, Illinois, Purdue and Wisconsin, and an upstart Penn State program? I'm guessing Tom Crean is happy that Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan in particular will all be part of the annual schedule.

The only thing that doesn't happen is that IU and Purdue, since they are in the same division, would not be eligible to play each other in the Big Ten title game. But given that it has been more than 40 years since they could possibly have had such a meeting, I'm guessing it's safe to say it won't be something that will occur any time soon. IU is still in the stage where it's trying to play in a low-level bowl game and with Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin in its division, I'm guessing it won't be worrying about playing in the Big Ten title game in the near future.

So what do you think? Do you give the new divisions a thumbs up or thumbs down where it concerns the Hoosiers?

Follow Terry Hutchens on www.twitter.com/indystar_hutch

The Cubs improved to 6-3 under Quade with a 5-3 win Wednesday over the pesky Pirates. Koyie Hill, Kosuke Fukudome and Tyler Colvin each hit RBI doubles as Chicago won the series.