The Cubs and Brewers were tied for first on Sunday morning. Now, on Thursday afternoon, the Cubs are a full 5 games ahead of the Brewers. This was the best series I can ever remember the Cubs playing. This was better than the Cubs sweeping the Expos in a 3-game set at Wrigley in August 1989 to take first place

his first win as a Cub.

He leads the Cubs offense, everything pivots off his effect and presence. Cubs starters continued in their good pitching and the Cubs bullpen masked Wood injury well.

Looking forward Cubs now need to rest DLee, 1 game each in the next two series before Thursday’s break….give him three days and possibly 2 in a row.

Continue to platoon Soto and Blanco once a series and I think we have learned that Fukudome is a 5 day player, not six.

Nurse Edmonds along (he has the most HR’s since June 1st) and work in Fonte and Johnson.

We learned this club is mentally and physically better than the Brewers and Cardinals.

1) They haven’t played well on the road and they did that this week.
2) They haven’t played well against the Brewers this year and they did that this week.

While September will be a difficult month, August has the potential to be like April and May. Hopefully they can pad this lead and take the pressure off going into september.

Cubs have two players with 18 HR’s (Soriano & Ramirez), two with 17 HR’s (Lee & Soto), one with 12 (Edmonds) and the other with 11(DeRosa) another pair with 8 (Fukudome & Fontenot). The only punch & judy hitters are Johnson (5), and Theriot (1). This means most of the time six or seven hitters can take the ball out of the yard.

I could see the Cubs having two 30 HR hitters, and three with 20 HR’s while DeRosa & Fukudome possibly over 15 when the season is over.

Starting pitching we have three with 10 wins, (Dempster & Zambrano 12) and Lilly with 10 while Harden and Marquis each have 6 wins. We could have one or two 20 game winners, another with 15 or more and possibly the two other starters with 10 wins.

This is balance. This is why the Cubs have the biggest run differential in the NL and growing.

I look for a big August, possibly 19 or 20 wins, bringing them to 84-85 wins by Sept 1.

Where are the posters who said the season was over after the Marlins series? Wasn’t there someone who thought the Cubs would finish 10 games below .500.

Have they all disappeared or are they peaking out over their ledge wondering if it is safe again to come out?

i admit that I was close to the ledge last weekend and dreading this series-it’s awesome to see the Cubs step up and make a statement-esp. after they looked so bad after the break.
And, as has already been mentioned, despite his streakiness-this is a much better team when Soriano is on the field. When he’s on it takes a lot of pressure off of the rest of the order, etc.
and one other thing; I couldn’t resist looking at the Brew Crew game thread towards the end of today’s game and it was pretty cool to see how many of them were talking about what a superior team the Cubs were top to bottom. I’ve waited most of my life to see the Cubs get that kind of respect.

This has been a fun series! I believe it’s showed a lot of people a few things also…

1. As long as the team doesn’t go into panic mode, this team has a very dangerous lineup. I know we’ve stated this before, but its one thing to be dangerous during the regular, less pressure, games of the season. And then be dangerous in the big games! This team CAN be dangerous in the big games if it just takes its time, paces itself, and doesn’t go nuts swinging for the long ball. If this team remembers to take its time, it will be awesome in the playoffs. When we get there, I believe our only weakness will be maybe bullpen. When we get there though, I am sure Marmol and Wood will be carrying the load of playoff bull pen work.

2. Fonzie is awesome. To me, he can… and will carry this team all by himself. I looked forward to him returning after his injury, because I felt with Lee, Aram, and Fukudome slumping to some degree, we needed him. I just felt he was awesome in this series. I couldn’t believe it when I was hearing so many Cub fans ripping on him at the beginning of the year. I won’t be surprised if he turns into our 2nd half MVP. He’s rested and ready to go….

Man… this was just awesome. I got to watch all of the games, and I am so thrilled. In my opinion, this is the best Cub team in a long… long time. If only DLee could stop hitting so many balls on the ground!

Go Cubs Go!

is what I’ve called it. Someone else called it the Milwaukee Massacre and Tom Hardicourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel called it “The Massacre in Milwaukee.”

Anyway you want to slice it, it’s a massacre.

"We don’t like the fact that we allowed their fans to come into our park and have a four-day party. But that’s our fault."

I was watching Gameday.

Why were Gagne & Fielder tossed?

ahhh

thanks

I know that this is me starting a convo on immature fans…

But is hurts when one of them has power on a site that SBNation runs.

Over at BrewCrewBall, I responded to a statement about not all fans being bad by agreeing and saying that not all Cubs fans are bad. I added that even though a Brewers fans cheered D-Lee going down after a foul ball catching him on the foot on Monday’s game.

One of their mod’s yelled at me, told me noone cared what I had to say.

I responded by saying it’s hard for me to take him seriously when he responds to me.

Then, I get an official warning saying I’ve been trolling and I have to stop and I’ve been officially warned.

Which is odd, because he did his best to “instigate animosity and then block us from responding. Real Mature!” (An exact quote from the mod’s signature about OUR site.)

Man, I love Al. We still have DrCrawdad posting here, and he is a fullblown White Sox fan. It’s because he doesn’t attack us and tries to provide unbiased opinions. Al lets him stay… despite the fact that he roots for another team.

Great site runners are awesome.

WE LIT EM UP.

is the starters only giving up 4BB. That’s almost unreal. How much does not giving a guy a free pass (and upping your pitch count) help! Mistake free ball makes a hell of a difference.

This is just what the Cubbie’s needed. Let’s hope they can coast into the post season !!