I for one cannot more pleased with this announcement. 

It will go, Dempster, Z, Harden, Lilly (if needed).

I hate to say I told you so (okay no I don't haha), but I have been saying this should be the way it goes since Dempster was announced as the Game 1 starter.

I think this does a lot of good things. Dempster (our best pitcher this year) gets to throw at home.

Z gets the teams confidence of the team and doesn't have to deal with the mind game opposing fans will throw at him.

Harden (to me) had to go in one of the first three games. For me, 5 game series are far too short to wait around for game four to throw him. Think of it this way, if the unthinkable happened and the Cubs were swept, how would you feel if Rich never got a chance to pitch in the playoffs?!

This is no way a diss to Lilly, but I think he is clearly not on the same level as the aforementioned Big Three.

One more note, I still think Z and Harden still could be flipped depending on if one game is a night game and the other is not.

What are your thoughts? I know Al in particular seemed to think Lilly should go in Game 2. After all this is a blog and I'm always interested in the opinions of others. Until then, lets beat some Brewers BABY!

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080926&content_id=3554007&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc