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Hey there Piniella - Friggin’ hilarious parody of Hey There Delilah. Check out the link to see the youtube.com video!

First place has never felt so good! The Cubs are now up 2.5 games above the Milwaukee Brewers and 3 games up on St. Louis in the NL Central division. Last night the Cubs beat the Brewers to win the series, which will be the last time we see the Brewers all season. So do the Cubs have what it takes to make it to the playoffs this October?

Well first off, we are in the weakest division in the Major Leagues, but you can’t sell the Cubs short. They only won 66 games last year, so you have to give a hand to Mr. Piniella and the new players coming over this year for making such a difference.

Has anyone noticed our starting pitching has been a little shaky lately? Well not completely, Hill and Lilly have been quite consistent.  Our Ace, Zambrano, has been garbage in his last five starts, posting an ERA above 7 for the month of August.  Jason Marquis and Marshall have also been inconsistent lately.  In order to make it to the playoffs we need our starting pitching to keep the Cubs in EVERY game by giving up 2 or less runs over 6 innings plus.  If the our rotation can manage, we should be able to take this division.

Up next we have the Astro’s - wouldn’t a sweep be nice.  Even though you can never bank on a sweep, pulling further ahead this time of year would be just what the doctor ordered for the Cubs and all their faithful fans.

Finally, the Chicago Cubs veered off their path of destruction by taking back-to-back games from the smoking hot Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.  Jason Marquis brought back memories of the first month of the season when he gave up only one run(zero earned) over 6.2 innings pitched.  Aramis Ramirez has been out with a soar wrist and looks to come back Tuesday after the night off on Monday.  The Cub’s Rich Hill will look for win number seven tonight, going for the sweep of the Rockies.

Jason Marquis had one of his best outings of the year last night; the only other time he has given up no earned runs was in April against his old St. Louis Cardinals team, and early May facing the Pittsburgh Pirates.  I was taking a look at Marquis stats and realized how often he gives up runs.  I found it remarkable that he could only give up one run at a stadium that is known to be a hitters park.  But sure enough, us Cubs fans love to see Marquis throwing the ball well and getting many batters to ground out with his sinker ball.

With a win tonight the Cubs have come within 2 games of the NL central leading Milwaukee Brewers.  The Cubs dominated the Cardinals tonight, winning 7-1 with Ted Lilly on the mound.  Ted Lilly’s record in his last 8 starts is 7-0,  6-0 in his last 6.  It is only a matter of time before the Brewers go into 2nd place in the NL central.

The story of today’s game was Ted Lilly.  He went 7.0 innings and gave up 6 hits, while walking 3 and striking out 2.  If you watch Lilly pitch, you can see his control is outstanding, he is hitting his spots and throwing good breaking balls. Lilly was an excellent pickup for the Cubs in the off-season, he could end up winning 17-18 games the way he is pitching.

But let’s not forget about the other starting pitchers, Zambrano became the first pitcher to 13 wins in the NL.  Could this be his Cy Young year? If anyone remembers, Zambrano made a prediction  at the beginning of the season that he would win the Cy Young and the Cubs would win the World Series.  Everyone laughed when he said that, and especially 4 weeks into the season, when Zambrano was 1-5 with an ERA close to 6.00.  Now the tables have turned and the Zambrano is leading the NL in W’s and the Cubs are creeping up behind the Brewers like a Bear about to attack!

It’s not just a couple players making big plays and leading the team, it’s a team filled with chemistry and A SHITLOAD of good players.  When I see the Cubs starting line-up I see 5 players batting around .300 or better. Lou has come into town and really made some noise.  Players have a hell of a lot of respect for the man and I think they know they have to play hard or go home.  We have already seen Izturis get traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Rookie Ryan Theriot take his position.  This is a good sign, last year I felt like the clubhouse atmosphere was to relaxed, kind of like Dusty’s attitude.  Couldn’t have a better man come into town then Lou Piniella.

The meltdown Lou Piniella had on June 2nd was the turning point of this season.  I was lucky enough to witness the madness of sweet Lou at Wrigley on that wild day.  It was the Cubs sixth straight loss and they were 9 games below .500, that not so elusive number (anymore).  My fellow Cubs fans and I all thought the Cubs were screwed just like last year, but we knew we had the right pieces of the puzzle.  Sure enough the Cubs went 18-8 in their remaining games in June and are now 14-6 so far in July.  Something just clicked that day.  Maybe the players realized that this man Piniella wants to win just as bad as they do.  You should have seen how red Piniella’s face turned that day, it stuck out like a giant red pepper from 150 feet away.  That day I was quite upset seeing a loss at Wrigley, but I look back and would not take back going to that game for ANYTHING! It was amazing!!!

GO CUBS… STOMP the BREWERS

What an exciting game it was today; Barry Bonds hit career home runs number 752 and 753, driving in 6 runs, and the Cubs still won! The Cubs offense has put up 21 runs in their last two games. Ted Lilly ended up getting the ‘W’ today, going 5 innings and giving up 6 hits. Our middle relief did not look very good today, giving up 5 runs of their own. Earlier in the year, these kind of games would have been lost. Our offense has been putting on a clinic for all of their opponents, its great to see the offense carrying the early relievers and getting the starting pitchers victories.

So let’s start with Barry Bonds; it was great to see him hit a couple historical home runs at Wrigley on his march to pass Hank Aaron’s home run record. Bonds must have been itching to hit a homer, he drilled the first pitch Lilly threw onto Sheffield Ave (the first on Sheffield, ALL YEAR.) His second homer of the game came in the seventh inning with 2 on and 2 outs with Will Ohman pitching. (more…)

Ouch, another tough start for Chicago. It was only 4 runs in the first inning today given up by Sean Marshall. I was surprised to see Marshall pitching so poorly; he has been known for his consistency and his quality starts since he came up earlier in the year. The Cubs did come back with 2 runs at the end of the 1^st inning, but it wasn’t enouh. After going through the batting order in the first, the Brewers didn’t let up. Marshall let them score another 3 runs in the second inning. He continued throwing fastballs down the middle of the plate and was unable to strike any Brewer out. His control was not as accurate as it has been all year. Marshall finished after 2 innings, giving up 7 runs on 7 hits…. DAMN! (more…)

If you did not see the footage Wrigley Field yesterday afternoon, our field was covered in 5 inches of rain within an hours time. It looked as though Hurricane Katrina’s sister was coming to Chicago. But the weather subsided and the wonderful crew at Wrigley made it seem like it never rained.

The Friendly Confines did not really catch on fire, but it seems that our Cubs have. Last night was their 5th win in a row, and this afternoon they will go for their second consecutive sweep. Here is the pitching matchup for today…

On paper, we sure have the upper hand in this matchup. The way Big Z has been pitching lately is lights out, I would be shocked if he gave up more than two runs. Hopefully our bats can stay hot, even though they don’t need to be too hot with Z on the mound, and we can sweep the Rockies.

More after the game