I think Marmol will be fine. As Howry heats up as he always does as the season goes along, Lou will start pulling back on Marmol’s innings. We’ve had a lot of close games late in innings as well. That will hopefully tail off.

Dempster will fade back into being a solid 4th guy or so. Lilly will settle back in as the solid #2. Our problem is at #3 and #5 imo. Hill appears to really, really be in Lou’s doghouse given Lou’s public comments about Hill’s trip to the DL at Iowa. Lou clearly thinks he’s a headcase.

Marquis is shaky already and will fade as he always does. His days are numbered, one way or the other. Where will that leave us with the #3 and #5 spots? That’s probably my biggest concern. I think we can piece together the #5 spot with Marshall, Gallagher, or whoever and probably get away with it. But who is our #3, or if Dempster can maintain a solid enough pace to be a quality #3, who is the #4?

I was reading about the Padres impending firesale. Maddux will almost certainly be available. Do you go get him as your #3/4/5? He would bring a lot to the clubhouse and probably a 4.50 era and some solid innings. He’s not a solid #3, but can be a solid #4 or #5 probably.

I would like to see the Cubs make a big push for Chris Young. Now that could be a very solid #2/3 with Lilly, then Dempster as our #4 and whomever as our #5. Could we maybe land both Young and Maddux in some sort of big package? I would think Pie is very appealing to the Padres given the spacious center field at Petco.

Anyway, I think we’re a solid CF and one more solid #3/#4 type pitcher away at this point from being the dominant team in the NL. I don’t think we can stand pat in this division and not risk being caught/passed by one of these other teams if they stay healthy and get hot.

Probably not. Do we need to keep this pace up? Almost certainly not.

...to figure out just who the top five will be come mid-July or so. It really could go a lot of different ways depending on what Hill does at AAA, how Marquis holds up and whether Gallagher can be productive over time. They have some depth here, so it could workout without having to overpay for someone at the deadline.

CF is another story. I don’t have a lot of confidence that either Pie or Edmonds are going to effective enouph with the bat to be a viable choice. Johnson is fine to start a couple games a week, but he will get exposed with too much playing time. I have no idea who may be available, but Hendry may end up hoping a good CF is available at the deadline.

Can they keep up a 28-18 pace for the duration? If the pitching holds up and no major injuries, yes they can. Do I think they will? Probably not, but they should be able to win 90-95 games or so, which wins the division by 7-8 games.

It’s pretty much the same crap over and over again.This offense just doesn’t hit the same on the road, and our starts seem to give up 4-5 runs way too much. Something needs to give we either need to start hitting or pitching better on the road or were not gonna win the division. These are our road loses this season

5-3
4-2
9-0
5-3
5-3
5-3
2-0
5-3
4-2
7-1
5-3

Sure a couple of those games we just got beat when we lost 9-0 and 7-1. But those 5-3 and 4-2 games have been killers so far. So like I said before we either need the pitching to start allowing 3 runs or less, or score 5-6 plus runs At home this is a 100 win team, but if they keep struggling on the road like they have, they will be lucky to win 90.

No reson to get excited in late May. Theres still alot of baseball to be played, and if the Cubs continue to stay ahead of the rest of NL central, that’s all that matters at this stage. The fun really starts after the All-Star break. That is where the men seperate themselves from the boys.