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Well, I’m off to see the Cubs face off against the Phillie’s tonight at Wrigley.  I haven’t been to a game since the Piniella “Freak Out,” so I’m hoping this game will be just as good! Tonight we have a terrific pitchers duel, Cole Hamels is going for the Phillie’s tonight, he has been lights out lately and his record is 11-5.  The Cubs have the train aka Ted Lilly going for his eighth straight win.  Lilly has won his last 8 decisions and his last 7 in a row!

My prediction for tonight is a good pitchers duel early on, but after the batting order goes around once, someone is going to light Hamels up! Not everyone realizes Soriano hits balls that are about 2 inches from the ground out of the park.  And keep your eyes on Derrick Lee, he has hit 5 home runs in his last 8 games.  I think it’s safe to say his power stroke his back.

Well I’m off to Wrigley! GO CUBS

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…)

It was tough seeing a loss yesterday, us Cubs fans have not seen one of those since before the All-Star break. Even though we did lose to the Giants yesterday, it was still a close, suspenseful game. Barry Bonds did not play for the second straight game, and he also did not start today. If you had a chance to watch the game yesterday, the crowd was amazing! They gave Kendall a standing ovation on his way up to the plate for his first at bat. That’s gotta be a hell of a feeling, all 40k plus fans cheering extremely loud, all for u!

Well the game yesterday wasn’t so great for Kendall going 0-4, but lets get him situated before we start making any judgment on his play. Derrick Lee on the other hand, hit his 8th home run on the season, his second homer in three games. Now everyone can be quiet about Derrick Lee’s power drought, seems like it may be over! If you haven’t found out yet, D Lee will start serving his 5 game suspension today. He told the media that he fouled a ball of his leg pretty hard yesterday, so why not take a little break and rest his ankle while serving his suspension? (more…)

Say hello to our new catcher, Jason Kendall.  Kendall has been an offensive force (well maybe not this year) batting .298 during his career.  The Cubs are hoping that Kendall can come around from his season long slump, in which he has been batting .226.  Rob Bowen was sent out to Oakland along with a minor league pitcher in order to acquire Kendall.  Bowen was having a horrible time batting for the Cubs.  His defense behind the plate was excellent, very comparable to that of Kendall’s.  This trade should give the Cubs more pop from their catcher position while bringing in the veteran catcher to work with some of the young pitchers.  I hope we can see the Kendall who many pitchers feared just last year, any catcher would be better at the plate then Bowen or K. Hill.  Welcome to Chicago Kendall!

Houston has been swept out of town by our beloved Cubs. At the beginning of this game it looked like it could have been a blow out. Marquis ended up giving the Astros 6 runs over 4 innings. As the Cubs have been lately, they fought back and won. This time with a couple big homers from Derrick Lee and Angel Pagan. Derrick Lee ended a 35 game home run drought, the longest in his career.

The Cubs started their second half in a big way sweeping the Astro’s. During the three game stretch we have gained a full game on Milwaukee; who barely won the series against the Rockies. I’ve noticed many of the ESPN analysts now predicting the Cubs to overtake Milwaukee in the division, something I’ve been saying for quite awhile now! (more…)

It’s nice seeing the Cubs back in action.  Even though its only been a 5 day all-star break, I couldn’t wait to see the Cubs return to action.  They started the second half in a fine fashion, Carlos Zambrano pitched lights out giving up only 3 hits and 3 BB in order to shut out the Astro’s 6-0.  The club has picked up exactly where they left off in the first half, winning games.  The Cubs are finally .500 at home!

Off the field, there has been a lot media attention on the Cubs lately.  We have the bidders for the Franchise coming out of the woodwork, with the spotlight shining on Mark Cuban.  Theres been positive talk of the Cubs resigning Big Z and even though the team is being sold, McDonough assured Cubs fans he can still write checks, big ones.  (more…)