and it’s Josh Fogg. We should be able to win the series today. If we win most series from here on out, we’ll be fine.

That said, fwhere I was sitting close to third base, it actually looked like Theriot should have gotten that ball into left field. He hung his head a bit on the way back to his position which indicated to me he thought he should have had it.

was frustrating in that Lilly pitched so well, but so did Arroyo, who seems to rise to the occassion against the Cubs. The Cubs really could use some more power production from Lee. It has been so long since he has homered consistently, the thought never really even occurs when he’s at bat lately. Also, doubles power out of Fukudome, let alone singles, has all but disappeared. Alas, the Cubs are still playing great ball, and said players have a month to find their strokes. Let’s go beat up on Fogg today, and get Big Z back on track.

Seeing games like this. This team should be getting more runs then that. I know it happens sometimes to every good hitting team. It just seems like sometimes when we have a bad game like that it carries over. Let’s hope that it doesn’t this time, since they have been playing such good baseball as of late.

Harden just barely outpitched Cueto and we won, now Arroyo just barely outpitched Lilly and they wont. I have faith the Cubs couldnt really sleep last night and will come out and put some crooked numbers on the board today.

Z should relax and getting things right against the free swinging Reds. This should serve as a spring board for the final push. He should get at least 7 starts and make a push toward 20 wins, an outside chance I know, but something to push for. No time like the present. Let’s win the next two before the Brewers even play a game to keep the pressure on!

Cubs number. His pitching style seems to always give the team fits. He throws a lot of off-speed junk and rarely challenges even the weakest hitters. He seems to suck against everyone else but manages to beat us on a regular basis. I’ll bet his record is pretty good against us.

he even homered a couple times against the Cubs and Glendon Rusch, if I remember correctly.

a couple more timely hits and they win this game. what can you do other than go out and get ’em today.

what do “they” say wins in the playoffs? pitching and we have been unbelievable lately…..the bats will come around, there is a reason why we have a +170 run differential (easily the tops in the bigs, next closest is chisox/bosox at +117)

I would have been perfectly fine skipping this recap and starting off the morning with today’s pregame thread. 11:30 feels so far away.

and I don’t know why. I don’t think he was even mentioned in the recap and for that I am thankful. Enough about him.

I like how the Cubs don’t rely so heavily on the long ball like the south siders, but it would be nice to see Aram and DLee hit them more consistently, where has their power gone? I mean Dero is only 3 short of DLee.

Should be a day for Z to turn it around. I’m sure a lot of people saw Z and Geo at Humboldt Park for the mini Cubs field, isn’t there one somewhere off of Ashland already?

Umpires and MLB have signed an agreement on using replay, however no start date has been set. Definitely looking more like this year will be the case after all.

Linky

the article on Samardzija, good stuff. I liked hearing Ankiel say Marmol’s slider and fastball look exactly the same coming out of his hand. I was talking to my step-dad about it yesterday, when Wood and Marmol are on, it’s just unfair to be a hitter.

these are the kind of games that you have to find a way to win.

These are typical playoff type games, low scoring one or two run games where little things cost you. You are not going to win them all.

Dero made great plays no question, but the wild pitch, the Theriot/Sori ball, the called 3rd strikes to end a game. Its that kind of stuff that you dont want to see a pattern of this late in the season.

Hopefully, being in some of these, even losing some of them can only help down the stretch.

on the internet and felt the Cubs would win this, even being down 2-1. When I got home from my errands and saw on the ESPN crawl that 2-1 was the final score and knew that Arroyo was pitching, I said to myself “the beat goes on.” That guy just kills us.

Win today and mission accomplished for this series. The loss last night does not derail us from winning the division. Even if we play .500 ball the rest of the way, Milwaukee has to play nearly .650 to catch us. We play 2 over the rest of the year, Brewers have to play over .700 ball. No worries.

…we’ve seen in awhile, but so be it. It’s nice to see Lilly pitch a strong game though, as he’s looked somewhat pedestrian at times this season. Looking forward to the playoffs, (always a dangerous proposition) we could all maybe take some solace in the fact that if Lilly can string together a couple more outings like this together, then we could conceivably have a four headed monster going into an NLDS series. With Zambrano (who, actually, hasn’t quite looked himself as of late,) Harden, Dempster and Lilly, we’ll have a pretty formidable starting rotation going in. One game shouldn’t cause us to wring our hands too much. If Zambrano can straighten things out today, I’ll feel much encouraged. Let’s get a win today, Cubbies.

Since everyone seems to believe that Arroyo kills the Cubs, here are his splits:

In 17 games (15 starts), Bronson is 6-6 with a 3.29 ERA, 66 K and 27 BB. His ERA is his best against teams in which he has started against 4 or more times.

At Wrigley, he is 4-3 in 9 games (8 starts), with a 3.88 ERA, 33 K and 17 BB. His ERA at Wrigley is the second-best in his career at parks in which he has made 3 or more starts.

I think this is a great descriptor of the Cubs offense and the only true concern I have outside of injuries of course. We saw the Cubs go cold last year in the playoffs and we have seen stretches this year of the same. Sure offense is a streaky thing, but it does scare me, and I hate to see great pitching wasted.

will be the Cubs bi**ch this afternoon.

Sometimes after a loss, some people freak out (never myself) and others give them hell for panicking. Is this pseudo confidence, because who out there in Cub world isn’t scared of blowing this thing? I mean, we are Cubs fans, isn’t this part of the make up.

right now