Archive - Sep 10, 2008

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With the NL Central race now firmly under his team's control, Cubs manager Lou Piniella sounds like a guy who is prepared to enjoy a low-stress wind-down to his team's regular season before he has to deal with the high drama of the National League playoffs.

"After that little rough patch on the last homestand, it's good to see us clicking again," Piniella said following Tuesday night's one-sided win against the Cardinals. "We're playing like we expect to win and doing the things that got us here. It's fun to watch this club play right now."

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Another day, another disappointing Cubs loss....

One of the many sad parts of this run of losing is that the Cubs have been competitive in all but one of these games. Scores of 5-2, 5-3, 3-0, 9-7 (11 innings), 3-0, 10-2, a 14-9 win, then back to back 4-3 losses. The pitching hasn't been great, but good enough to win a couple of those games. The bats though have certainly struggled since August 30th:

A few of our regulars are performing adequately, but no one is really on much of a hot streak. The only one that screams to be benched is Fukudome and we have seen his playing time dwindle lately. Out of the bench guys, Fontenot has a .771 OPS and Cedeno 1.303 out of anyone that has gotten some AB's. 

And while every Chicken Little sports reporter out there is just dying for another Cubs collapse so they can wax poetic about the 1969 and 2008 Cubs, the magic numbers have continued to go down over the last week for the 2008 team. The same can't be said for the 1969 club who watched the Mets bullrush past them in the standings when they lost 12 of 13 including 9 straight at one point and a five game lead turned into a 4.5 game deficit. The 2008 team has lost all of one game in the standings thanks to the Brewers suffering their own, far more worrisome, meltdown.

That isn't to say there's nothing to worry about, but it is to say that the baseball gods seem to be showing some restraint on our poor, fragile Cubs hearts.