Not being from Chicago, the Cubs/Sox rivalry somewhat eludes me in significance. In central Illinois I can't remember meeting more than one White Sox fan in my whole life, because those who aren't Cubs fans are most certainly Cardinals fans. Maybe its disdain for the city slickers to the north who scrape and claw for all of the state budget they can get, but there's a mindset that's against Chicago and the Cubbies that I simply cannot comprehend. Why would someone be a...St. Louis fan if you lived in Illinois?

Anyway, the point is that there's a rivalry far more fierce outside of Chicago than Cubs/Sox, because its one that means something in the standings, and consequently I don't really buy into all the hype for the crosstown series. Nevertheless, its forced down my throat by commercial after commercial telling me to "feed the rivalry" with a Big Mac or choose between the North Sider or South Sider at Subway, and the only big difference between them is the amount of pig meat. And you know, its working. The level of hatred for the White Sox has steadily risen the past few days with each game and commercial, and all I can hope for is the Cubs to give them a good whomping in this third game today. I'm fully aware that this rivalry means so much solely because the Cubs and Sox can't claim supremacy via World Series victories, but hell, if White Sox fans are going to scream and shout, I may as well shout back. Stupid White Sox.

That being said, the series has been a good one so far, although Saturday's game was embarrassing. Zambrano's allowed to have bad starts, but the Cubs shouldn't allow a 0-1, 11.45 ERA pitcher dominate them like Felix Diaz did. The most aggravating part of the game was right before Joe Crede's home run in the 3rd, where Zambrano tried to pick off Timo Perez a good eight times in a row. At that point you know that the pitcher's concentration is shot, and the following pitch proved it. Zambrano's looked in control of almost all his games the season, but he didn't have his head in it yesterday.

The Cubs and Greg Maddux need to get through the first inning today without giving up any runs, because the Cubs are facing a far better pitcher than Diaz in Esteban Loaiza, and they can't afford to fall behind a few runs at any point if they want to think about winning today. The Cubs offense is potent, but the White Sox's offense is incredible this year, and they're not going to lie down and depend on pitching to get them through a game. If the Cubs do lose today and give the Sox brief bragging rights its not the end of the world, but they should be more worried about falling more than 4 games behind St. Louis, who's facing a far weaker interleague rival in Kansas City.

A point of interest- Corey Patterson's line the last 6 games? 417/440/667. Everyone's been wowed by Derrek Lee lately, but you can't ignore these numbers. Let's hope Corey's turned a corner and can bat at .300 or higher from this point on.

- posted by Mike J. @ 12:07 PM
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The Cubbies, well, sucked it up last night in a 4-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, and the loss was made only more bitter by the fact that Matt Clement is on my fantasy team. The 4-run fourth was almost avoided, but instead of turning the double play, Rey Ordonez flubbed it and allowed the floodgates to open. The Cubs know he can't hit - his .083 batting average is worse than all the Cubs starting pitchers' - and its becoming obvious he's not that great of a fielder as well, with a .932 fielding percentage and 3 errors in a third as many games as Ramon Martinez. Of course, the Cubs won't have to worry about him much longer, since old unreliable Alex Gonzalez will be back in the lineup soon enough. The Cubs either need to move Todd Walker or Mark Grudzielanik to second or find a decent shortstop out there, and soon because they need the upgrade.

Why? Because last night Houston upgraded its already potent offense with Carlos Beltran and solved Craig Biggio's problems with Tal's Hill by moving him out of center field altogether. Its pretty unlikely that the Astros will be able to sign Beltran next year without a great deal of lineup shuffling, and with no guarantee Roger Clemens will come back (although why not? He clearly hasn't lost any of his stuff), there seems to be a sense of urgency in Houston.

They've still got a lot to get through, because there's still three teams ahead of them in the standings and none of them, except maybe Cincinnati, are slouches. St. Louis has better pitching than expected - their bullpen most importantly, plus Chris Carpenter doesn't hurt - and the Cubs still aren't at full strength, and I don't mean Alex Gonzalez. Glendon Rusch has been doing great, but mentally they need Kerry Wood back as much as they need his arm, because then they'll have the glorious-starting rotation-that-was-supposed-to-be-the-best-in-baseball-this-year-but-has-yet-to-materialize ready to go for the second half.

Not to mention the Astros' bullpen isn't what it used to be. Houston gave up Octavio Dotel in the trade, leaving the closing job to...Brad Lidge? Recently acquired David Weathers? Whoever the job goes to, the bullpen has taken a hit, and it remains to be seen if the offense Beltran adds to the team is more than the runs they'll allow without Dotel.

- posted by Mike J. @ 10:02 AM
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I'm struggling for words to exactly describe last night's game, although perhaps Steve Kline summed it up well in the 6th inning when he didn't get called from the bullpen by Tony LaRussa. Kline flipped LaRussa the bird, which was entirely unprofessional and ugly, but at the same time pretty entertaining. The Cubs roller coaster of a game ended up in a loss because of a handful of mistakes that cost them some key runs, most notably Paul Bako's pass ball that clearly should have been caught. Of course, one has to sympathize a little, because I don't think anyone foresaw Michael Barrett getting tossed along with Kent Mercker.

(By the way, Chip Caray delivered a genuinely funny line when he remarked "and Steve Kline is signalling 'We're #1' to the dugout" in the 6th when he gave LaRussa the finger. However, his rare wit was immediately canceled out by such comments as "He's Sooo Taguchi.")

Despite the loss and the blooper reel highlights by the defense, the Cubs batted exceptionally well, and its good to see that they don't have to rely on dingers to get their runs every game. The Cubbies won 2 games against Houston without a home run, and won another with only a solo homer by Ramon Martinez. Todd Walker had the only home run last night, another solo shot, and the majority of runs came on a 6th inning rally, where the Cubs added another 5 after Walker's home run. The Cubs are doing very well in terms of team hitting- in the NL, they're 5th in batting avg., 1st in slugging pct., 1st in total hits (and total home runs), not to mention they're second in the league in extra-base hits behind only the Rockies.

Who's right behind them or just in front of them in all these categories? Who else? The Cards and the Astros. With nearly identical offenses, looks like its going to come down to pitching, and if you're a Cub fan, that's gotta make you feel pretty good.

- posted by Mike J. @ 10:24 AM
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Last night the Cubs managed to come away with the first game of the Cubs - Cardinals series, winning their 7th straight road game. What started out as another stinker in Busch ended up being one of the Cubs biggest wins of the season. Thanks to some clutch hitting by Aramis Ramirez and a phenomenal outing by the Cubs' bullpen the Cubs moved one game back in the division with a chance to move into a tie for first tonight. Last night was one of the grittiest performances by the Cubs as they had to come back twice, the final time coming against the celebrated Cardinal bullpen. I missed some of the game so I don't really have any coherent threads here so I will just give some observations from last night.

• Kyle Farnsworth made a big step last night towards exorcising his Busch Stadium demons. Farnsworth had a fantastic outing, coming in for the last out of the 7th inning and then the 8th which featured the heart of the St. Louis order. Along with many Cub fans, I flinched when I changed the channel and saw Farnsworth pitching against Pujols and Rolen but he was outstanding, striking out 2 and getting Rolen to pop out. Hopefully, we've seen the last of the old Farnsworth.



• As much criticism as Waving Wendell has received this year I think am going to come to his defense. I know Kim has probably cost the Cubs a couple games and if he hasn't cost us the game he has at least made some head scratching decisions. However, I think Kim is doing a good job in that he puts pressure on the opposing defense to make a good play and throw. While the outfielders may not be thinking that the Cubs have a waving third base coach when they catch the ball, the fact that the Cubs runners take off quite regularly puts a lot of stress on a team to make the good play. It seems that for every time a Cub has been thrown out at the plate another time a runner is able to make it to second (and then score on an ensuing hit) on a bad throw due to the pressure of a runner trying to score from third. Even more important is that Kim is showing much better decision making lately while at the same time still putting pressure on the opposing defense at the right time. Kim thought it would be a good idea to test Womack's surgically repaired arm and even though Sosa would have been out if not for the dropped ball, Sosa scored and the Cubs took the lead. I am not saying that Waving Wendell is always right or necessarily a good coach but I do think his moves are effective and have a certain usefulness, despite his occasional failures.



• I am going to go out an a limb and say that Corey Patterson deserves a Gold Glove in center field. Say what you will about his hitting woes and attitude at the plate but Corey Patterson has been nothing short of amazing in believe that center field this year. While he has not always shown the best arm, with last night as an exception, Patterson has shown exceptional range and an uncanny ability to make the big play in the field. He has yet to make an error in the field this year and has routinely gotten to balls which I doubt many center fielders could get to. I know it's tough to unseat the incumbent in Gold Glove awards but I Corey is more deserving of his more celebrated counterpart in St. Louis who is great but with less range than Corey. Take for instance the recent Houston series in which Corey put on a clinic on how to play center field while Craig Biggio struggled mightily with the hill. Hopefully, Corey can get the recognition he deserves for a fantastic start in center field.

I don't really have anything more to say about last night's game that hasn't been already said by many more people. The Cubs simply outplayed the St. Louis Cardinals last night and stole away the all important first game of the series. Hopefully the Cubs can come out tonight, have a great game, and take back first place for the first time since late May. The Cubs will send the pitcher formerly known as Glendon Rusch to the mound tonight and it will be interesting to see how long this apparent deal with the devil lasts. Rusch has been amazing so far in his appearances in place of Kerry Wood and it will be a good night if he can continue that trend. So far the Cubs-Cardinals games have been hard fought and solid and there is every reason to believe tonight will be the same. Let's hope the Cubs can take back a share of first place.

- posted by Mike R. @ 4:57 PM
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• Anyone feeling a little different about Corey Patterson lately? It seems like he's making contact in clutch situations a little more often and not chasing the ball out of the strike zone like we all know he can. Its also hard to dislike him after that amazing catch late in the Astros game last week that may have saved the game for the Cubbies and allowed them to sweep.
  
  Then again, the numbers don't really lie. In June, Corey's on pace to do just a little better than he did in May, and he's still striking out as much as always (20 in April, 21 in May, and 16 in June so far). His average is up from from the month of May, where he batted .250, to .276, but he's still only batting .266 on the year and his OPS is only .758 on the year. He's got only 8 HR and 28 RBI so far, which puts him more in the company of Scott Podsednik of the Brewers and Tike Redman of the Pirates rather than Jim Edmonds of the Cardinals or Ken Griffey Jr. of the Reds in terms of hitting.
  
  I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Corey for now, though. He's all of 24 years old and coming back from a torn ACL last year, so I think he'll find some patience soon enough, and until then he can use his improved bunting skills and speed to get on base.
  



• The Cubs are finding themselves with a lot more power than they're used to at the plate, namely because of Moises Alou's incredible year so far, Aramis Ramirez's ability to accumulate the RBI, and the emergence of Derrek Lee. His numbers are ridiculous in June - .434 batting average and 1.297 OPS, not to mention 5 HR and 18 RBI. 7 multi-hit games in June, and 5 of those were 3 hits or more, including one game where he went 5 for freakin' 5. If Sammy gets hot, the Cubs will have a lineup that's almost comparable to the unbelievable bats of St. Louis.



• I'd like to believe the Astros can be counted out already, but it's a little premature for wishful thinking. Not but a few weeks ago the Cubs were in the exact same position, and now they're a game out of first. However, if the Astros can't turn it around soon (and who knows, with the Reds better than expected), they may be too far behind by the All-Star break.



• After winning 10 of the last 12, the Cubs find themselves a game out of first and ready to win another series on the road against the Cardinals. After seeing Kyle Farnsworth looking sharp and getting 4 outs in a row and a win last night, the same Farnsworth who flat out couldn't pitch in Busch Stadium before this, you gotta think that the Cubs have that certain something and will be able to win at least one of the next two. Just like the ass-whomping he dished out on Reds' pitcher Paul Wilson last year, his clutch pitching in St. Louis could mark a turning point in attitude for the Cubs. Right about that time last year it became pretty obvious the Cubs didn't see themselves as loveable losers anymore, and coming off a great road trip and now Farnsworth's performance, it seems like the Cubs know they can win and expect no less of themselves. Hell, without Woody they're still 10 games over .500.

**By the way, I'm reconsidering putting the old logo back up. Post a comment if you've got any strong feelings on the subject.

- posted by Mike J. @ 4:37 PM
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Its been obvious that we haven't had much time to update the site lately, and the "Old Style Cubs - Updated Daily" tagline in the upper left-hand corner has been, quite literally, a bold-faced lie for a good three weeks now. All that's behind us, though, as the other Mike and myself are quite free of commitments for this summer stretch of baseball, and we will be able to update continually.

We've made a few small changes to our site that aren't entirely noticeable at first glance. The "Series Star" picture is no longer on the sidebar, but we will continue to select a star for each series, but not post their picture. You all know what they look like anyway. We're also shifting the focus away from game notes, although not entirely, because there are already plenty of great blogs (Big Red C, for one) and news sites (ESPN.com comes to mind for some reason), and game notes can only be written in so many different ways. We'll be shifting to more of a series by series focus, although something will be posted most every day.

Anyway, stay tuned for the Cardinals series preview...they were practically counted out at the beginning of the season based on the strength of the Astros and Cubs pitching and their lack of it, but with their starters better than expected, they've made things pretty interesting as the season approaches the All-Star break.

Update (6/22/04)

The site is now a little less, um, illegal, as I put together a new logo for the site that doesn't blatantly steal any images that may or may not be copyrighted. That's all.

- posted by Mike J. @ 3:52 PM
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