That title describes both the day's weather -- beautiful, sunny, with the wind blowing in (and that was important, as at least two or three fly balls hit by Pirates today off Ted Lilly would have been on the street on most other days), and the baseball played by the Cubs, in another solidly played win, 5-1 over the Pirates this afternoon.

This truly has been a team effort all season long -- no one's really having a monster career year, but everyone is contributing. Today it was Reed Johnson's turn -- he had three hits, two runs scored and a stolen base. Since the All-Star break Johnson is hitting .452/.500/.742 in 31 at-bats -- obviously, he's not going to keep up that pace the rest of the season, but the Cubs have an excellent platoon arrangement in center field, and Lou has been able to rest other starters (today, Kosuke Fukudome didn't start, but pinch-hit and singled in the 8th inning).

This, for those of you too young to remember, is what didn't happen in 1969 -- the '69 team, which was 69-41 (with one tie game) after this point, 111 games played in that year, was ridden till it collapsed from exhaustion in early September, because Leo Durocher simply didn't have bench players he could trust (or, depending on what you believe, didn't choose to trust in them). Lou Piniella has an excellent bench and bullpen and is using them wisely. That will keep D-Lee and A-Ram and Geo and Alfonso Soriano, fresh for the stretch run, and, we hope, the postseason.

Ted Lilly didn't start off very well in this game. In the second inning he walked two and allowed Pirates pitcher Paul Maholm to dribble a single to deep short that Ryan Theriot couldn't handle (I would have scored it an error, but it wasn't), allowing the Pirates' only run to score. I wasn't counting pitches but it had to be a huge pitch count early, as the scoreboard on the upper deck showed 80 pitches in the fourth inning. But darned if Lilly didn't settle down and mow through the Pirates in the fifth and sixth, and finally had to be removed with one out in the seventh, to a warm ovation. The final pitch count of 111 included 70 strikes, and no further walks after that second inning.

Meanwhile, the Cubs were putting together one of their most efficient offensive displays of the season. In all three of their scoring innings (2nd, 4th and 5th) they got the leadoff man on base and scored him -- and twice got the first TWO runners on and scored both of them. Even D-Lee's 22nd DP ball of the year had a positive aspect, as it came with nobody out and a runner on third, so it scored the fourth Cub run of the game. Geovany Soto drove in two runs and now has sixty RBI. The CF message board indicated that Soto's 17 HR are the most for a rookie catcher since Mike Piazza hit 35 in 1993.

We all cringed when Bob Howry came in to throw the 8th, and as he did on Thursday in Milwaukee, he was a bit shaky, allowing two hits; but he got out of it with a foul popup, and Carlos Marmol threw perhaps too many pitches (22) in a non-save situation, meaning if a closer is needed tomorrow, it'll probably be Jeff Samardzija.

There was a large bachelorette party seated in front of us. One of them had some sort of novelty "challenge" book, things that the bride-to-be is supposedly supposed to do during the party time. One of the "challenges" was to kiss a man with a mustache. No, it wasn't me! (I've got a goatee, not a mustache.) PHIL was the designated kissee; he was a good sport about the smooch, which was done to general laughter from section 301.

And we are all in that sort of mood. Happy, laughing, smiling. May it continue for three more months.

Finally, a bit more humor. Here is the top of the scorecard from the current series, which appears to indicate that the Cubs had played over 2300 games vs. the Pirates in the last 15 years:

click on image to open a larger version in a new browser window

Wow. I know the Cubs had played the Pirates a lot earlier this year, but I didn't know it was that many times. (And no, the home record isn't 467-4; that's just where my scan cut off.) Enjoy the evening; go Braves, go Phillies.

I nearly fell asleep in the bleachers today and it wasn't because I was tired, as I usually am due to my work hours -- I've had the last two days off and have had plenty of sleep.

No, today I was yawning because the Cubs looked completely out of sorts, stymied by a guy they apparently knew nothing about:

The Cubs didn't have much of a scouting report against [Jeff] Karstens (1-0), whom the Pirates acquired from the New York Yankees in the Xavier Nady deal. Friday was his first big league appearance this year, and he gave up five hits, walked four and struck out two over six innings.

Well, c'mon now. It's not as if Karstens just magically appeared out of nowhere -- someone had to be scouting him, right? In any case, the Pirates, having turned over one-sixth of their roster in the last week due to the trades of Jason Bay and Xavier Nady, put what was basically a Triple-A team (plus the only real major leaguer, Nate McLouth) on the field at Wrigley today and thus I'm only half-joking when I say the Nashville Sounds, um, the Pirates shut out the Cubs 3-0, the Cubs' fifth shutout of the season -- and of the previous four, two of them were by other teams with losing records (April 27 at Washington and May 7 at Cincinnati).

Jason Marquis threw just fine, thank you. It was a "quality start" (three ER in six IP), though I'm not sure "quality" describes a 4.50 ERA; that's pretty much Marquis' career average. He gave up a HR to Jason Michaels and a couple of RBI singles, to Michaels and Jack Wilson, two sort of marginally better than the rest of the minor league lineup on the field today, and that was it. He walked only one. The bullpen put up three one-hit innings with six strikeouts, and Carlos Marmol looked like the "old" Marmol, snapping off sliders and striking out the side in his one inning of work.

The Cubs just couldn't get anything going, even with men on base all day -- five hits and seven walks. They hit into four double plays, including one by PH Reed Johnson with two on and one out in the eighth when it appeared the Cubs might be mounting a comeback against the Pirates' Sean Burnett, and another by Henry Blanco to end the game (Dave called that one, and I guess the rest of us could have, too).

Were the Cubs in for a letdown like this? Maybe, since the series in Milwaukee had featured one really intense game (Monday), and three blowouts -- you can't sustain that as a team forever, and perhaps the Cubs could be forgiven for looking past a pitcher like Karstens, who had had little major league success with the Yankees, toward two better pitchers (Paul Maholm and Ian Snell) going in the other two games of this series.

There's not much more to say about this day or this game. The Cubs lost and looked flat. By the seventh inning a fair amount of the bleacher crowd had already gone, heading either to Lollapalooza or perhaps the Bears' workout at Soldier Field (which, according to Jeff, had sold over 65,000 tickets, an amazing number for just watching the Bears have a workout). Thomas Ian Nicholas, the actor who played Henry Rowengartner in the 1993 movie "Rookie of the Year" (and later became more famous for his work in the "American Pie" films) thus sang "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" (and not very well, I might add) to a mostly-disinterested, about 1/4 empty house.

Advice to the Cubs: go home, have a nice quiet Friday night, forget about this one and get 'em tomorrow. Stuff like this happens. In the meantime -- go Braves! go Phillies!