I don't think there are any big surprises here; I suspect our balloting will come pretty close to matching the BBWAA awards

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In order for the tables to fit better, you'll have to click "Continue reading this post" to find them. For MVP's, we voted for the top 10 instead of the top 3, and points were allocated as follows: 14 points for first place, then 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for 2nd through 9th.

My ballot: 1) Pujols 2) Wright 3) Beltran 4) Howard 5) A. Ramirez 6) Berkman 7) H. Ramirez 8) Braun 9) Delgado 10) Soto

Mike's ballot: 1) Howard 2) Pujols 3) Wright 4) Berkman 5) Delgado 6) Braun 7) Utley 8) H. Ramirez 9) A. Ramirez 10) Soto

Continue reading this post »

For six innings, it looked like Ted Lilly was going to put himself in the record books. As it was, in the last 13 innings he has thrown at Miller Park, he has allowed three hits and two runs to two different teams.

Since Lilly, like all the starters since the division clinching, is on a pitch limit (and won't go until a week from tomorrow, if that game 4 in the NLDS is even necessary), he was yanked, to warm applause from the Cubs fans in the Miller Park crowd.

The rest of the game was ... um, rather shaky. You can't really blame Jason Marquis or Neal Cotts; in fact, Marquis might have saved the game by hitting Ryan Braun with a pitch (no, I don't think it was intentional) -- Braun came into this game 4-for-11 with a double and a homer vs. Jason and the HBP, which caused Braun to slam his bat down in frustration, kind of stopped the comeback of the Brewers. Instead, Cotts came in to face Prince Fielder.

Let me interrupt this recap to say what an absolute slob Fielder is. While he was holding a Cub runner on first in the late innings, the TV camera showed him with his back pocket turned inside out and his jersey untucked. Yuck.

OK, back to the recap. Cotts did his job, getting Fielder to pop up -- but ONEDEC! turned back into Ronny Freakin' Cedeno, dropping the popup, allowing a run to score and forcing Lou, who gave a little smirk after the HBP, to call on Michael Wuertz to get out of the inning. And fortunately, Cedeno sort of redeemed himself with a single in the Cubs' three-run ninth, and it was real nice to see Kosuke Fukudome hit a homer, his tenth, and the Cubs beat the Brewers 7-3; combined with the Mets' 2-0 shutout of the Marlins behind Johan Santana and the Phillies' 4-3 win over the Nationals, the Phillies clinched the NL East and the one remaining race in the NL is Brewers/Mets for the wild card, now in a dead tie, both teams 89-72 with one game left, tomorrow.

Nice homer today too for Daryle Ward, his fourth, and he drove in 17 runs this year with only 22 hits. He also walked sixteen times and is this team's best pinch-hitter.

I'll make no secret of who I want to win it: the Mets. I think the Cubs match up much better with the Mets than with the Dodgers, who they'd play if the Brewers win the wild card. It would, I suppose, be beneficial to the Cubs if the race ended in a tie after tomorrow and the Mets and Brewers would have to meet in a tiebreaker game Monday at Shea Stadium; maybe both teams would run through their entire bullpens and have to shift around rotations and not be totally prepared for the beginning of the Division Series on Wednesday -- the game time of which, we still do not know, and may not know until all the matchups are finalized.

That three extra days' wait will be good for the Cubs, because Mark DeRosa won't play tomorrow and wouldn't have been ready if the playoffs had started today. By next Wednesday, a week after he strained his calf, hopefully it'll be healed enough to play. That link also says that Geovany Soto would have played had today been a playoff game, so I'd expect to see him play tomorrow as a tuneup.

Let me take this opportunity to extol the virtues of Henry Blanco, the best backup catcher in the game. By making an out in what is likely to be his final regular season at bat, his average dropped below .300 -- but at .297, he hit 70 points over his lifetime average (.227) and had by far his best offensive season, having just turned 37 years old. Even if the Cubs have to pay him $3 million to return next year, it's worth it. Would you rather have Koyie Hill or Wellington Castillo backing up Geo next year?

I thought not.

You are, once again, witness to history. The Cubs' 97th win this afternoon makes this the winningest Cub team since the 1945 team won 98, and this group can match that today. It's the ninth-most wins in the 133 years of franchise history.

All that resets to zero on Wednesday, and the important number is eleven. Eleven more wins in October, to victory and redemption.

If last night's 6-4 Cubs win over the Brewers had been a postseason game, it would have become legendary.

The game had so many memorable elements -- three lead changes, power galore from the Brewers, clutch pitching from Cub relievers, and a suddenly-hot Alfonso Soriano helping lead the charge with a double, homer and stolen base.

Let's get this quibble out of the way right now, then -- Soriano almost embarrassed himself in the first inning when he went into a home run trot on his deep fly ball to left, only to see it come up just short of "over the wall" and had to hustle into second base, just safe. Fortunately, he scored moments later on Derrek Lee's single.

Another moment that might have been seen as a momentum-turner had the Cubs not come back and won was 3B coach Mike Quade's ill-advised decision to send D-Lee home from second on Mark DeRosa's single in the sixth with the Cubs up 2-0 and only one out. Lee, still apparently slowed from having fouled a ball off his knee a couple of innings earlier, was thrown out easily. I started to have a "Wavin' Wendell" flashback. And when J. J. Hardy and Ryan Braun homered in the last of the sixth off Ted Lilly (just about the only things Lilly did wrong last night) to tie the game, all of us had visions of the power-laden Brewers running away with the game.

But darned if it didn't happen. The Cubs got a break in the 7th when Rickie Weeks threw away a DP relay throw (on yet another Lee grounder that could have been an inning-ending DP); credit to Reed Johnson for an excellent slide that broke up the DP. An earned run scored on the FC, and another one on the error, giving the Cubs the lead back.

Which was promptly coughed up by Bob Howry, allowing a pinch-HR to Russell Branyan.

OK, so I'm not going to yell "DFA Howry!!" here. But I seriously wonder why Lou keeps putting him in these situations, when he hasn't proven he can handle lower-pressure affairs like the game in Arizona last week, and especially considering Howry's flat fastball (CSN's pitch speed meter had that one at 90 MPH) is like raw meat to a hungry power hitter like Branyan. Once again, Scott Eyre sat gathering mold in the bullpen last night. It appears Eyre's on the trading block, possibly to the Rays, Red Sox or Tigers.

You could, I am sure, feel the tension through your TV, if you were watching -- I did -- as Chad Gaudin struck out the side in the 8th inning, and then as the Cubs put together their winning rally, helped out by two key walks to Soriano and the Wonder Hamster, and then D-Lee's double slicing down the RF line, to cheers just as loud from the large Cub fan contingent at Miller Park last night -- they set a record with their 8th consecutive sellout, and of course expect to sell out the rest of the series.

Carlos Marmol looked fine last night in closing, even when he had apparently struck Gabe Kapler out to end the game, only to be forced to throw one more pitch when the umpires ruled that Geovany Soto didn't catch a pitch swung at by Kapler. That was the ruling, right? Why couldn't Soto have just tagged Kapler out? Doug Eddings, the umpire who A. J. Pierzynski snookered in the 2005 ALCS, was the 3B umpire last night. With a chance for redemption, he did nothing. Anyway, all ended well when Kapler flied to left.

Whew! What a night, and that's just the first of four, with playoff intensity, and the Cubs made a huge statement by defeating CC Sabathia. If Carlos Zambrano -- who has pitched very well in his career in Milwaukee -- can win tonight, the pitching matchups tilt into the Cubs' favor starting on Wednesday night -- I can't wait to get up there!

Final note: thanks to BCB reader Hammer, who noticed something that nobody else did -- not the rest of us, nor the players, nor the official scorer -- the umpires called a balk on Ted Lilly when Lilly had apparently picked Rickie Weeks off second base in the third inning, clearly visible when he replayed the play. The official scorer credited Weeks with a stolen base. In the end, it didn't matter, because Lilly got Hardy and Braun to end the inning with no runs scoring.

Well, did she make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love
And is it over now
Do you know how to pick up the pieces and go home?

-- Fleetwood Mac, "Gold Dust Woman"

David Kaplan of WGN radio put it best, I think, in his postgame comments, as I heard them while driving home from the toughest Cub loss of this young season, 4-3 to the Brewers this afternoon, a game that seemed "hard fought and won", as that old saw goes.

Kaplan said that instead of slotting Felix Pie in the game for Reed Johnson, Lou Piniella should have put Pie in CF and moved Johnson to LF, replacing Alfonso Soriano... because Johnson probably would have caught Gabe Kapler's long drive to left that Soriano misread and misplayed.

And he's right. I know Soriano is maddening at times and today was one of his worst days as a Cub, making that bad play and going 0-for-4 at the plate, grounding out three times and popping up in the 7th after Mike Fontenot had singled.

It was shades of Opening Day. Kerry Wood, who's been quite good in the closing role this year, hit Craig Counsell with the first pitch he threw today, just as he hit Rickie Weeks with his first pitch of the 2008 season on March 31... and the result was the same, a disastrous three-run inning highlighted by Kapler's double that should have been an out. After Jason Kendall singled in the second run, the Cubs still had the lead at 3-2, but then Ryan Braun (who Dave calls the best right-handed hitter in the NL after Albert Pujols, and he's likely correct) smacked a double that the wind took away from a frantically reaching Fukudome, scoring the tying and lead runs. Wood got Prince Fielder to ground out to end the inning with the Cubs only down by one.

Now what would you have done after Ronny Cedeno walked? Would you have had Geovany Soto bunt? Dave said he would. I wouldn't have, but Eric Gagne threw offspeed stuff to Soto (unlike the fastballs Soto hammered last night) and got Soto on a called third strike on a pitch that you can't, simply cannot, look at. Pie then hit into a double play to end it. Should Cedeno have been running? Had he been running on Soto's at-bat, he'd at least have stayed out of the DP. And we all know how bad Jason Kendall is at throwing out runners (though, he has been better so far this year, throwing out nine of 22 runners trying to steal).

All of this on a day we should have been celebrating. Carlos Zambrano launched a ball into the left-field bleachers (opposite field, hitting left-handed, no less) for his 13th career HR, tying Fergie Jenkins for the most career HR by a Cubs pitcher -- and Fergie had 893 AB as a Cub, Z has accomplished this in fewer than half as many AB, 430 after today. Z also threw a good, if a little pitch-heavy (111), six and a third innings, lowering his ERA to 2.11 by allowing only one run -- a HR to Braun that tied the game in the sixth. An error on a miscommunication between Johnson and Fukudome on the next batter, Fielder, threatened to untie the game, but Z got Corey Hart to strike out and then Fukudome nailed Fielder at the plate on a perfect throw (I think we could feel the ground move underneath us as the 260-pound Fielder crashed into the 230-pound Soto at the plate, Soto hanging on to the ball for the out).

Tougher losses you will not find. It's especially bad when:

a) the game seemed well in hand, and

b) the opponent is one of your biggest divisional rivals.

The loss drops the Cubs 1/2 game behind the idle Cardinals into second place, and the Cubs are only a game ahead of the third-place Brewers, who won four of the first six meetings between the teams -- but remember this. Two of the games, today and Opening Day, were tough games that could have gone either way. These two teams won't meet again until the last week of July, nearly three months from now, and by then the divisional race should be taking shape much more clearly than it is today. I don't expect the Cardinals, off to a good start, to be able to maintain their pace -- but Milwaukee is a good club (even if their defense and bullpen are a little shaky) and will stay there.

There were a lot of Brewer fans in Wrigley Field for this entire series, unusual for a time when schools are still in session and the weather can be iffy (though it was pleasant today, no rain and a game-time temperature of 70); I'd say perhaps 5,000 to 7,000 fans chanted "Let's Go Brewers!" through that 9th inning rally. Unlike past days there didn't seem to be any Brewer/Cub fan incidents, and those really are unfortunate. I think part of it stems from the fact that over the last few years, Cub fans have taken over Miller Park during Cub/Brewer series and Milwaukee fans have developed a bit of a chip on their shoulders as a result.

Maybe I'm off base, but that's how I see it. It doesn't have to be this way. These were hard-fought games and there's a nascent rivalry that might, in time, be close to the Cub/Cardinal rivalry for proximity and team competition. To any Brewer fans out there -- I respect your team and how it's been built. Let's have a GOOD rivalry, not the Yankee/Red Sox kind where the fans genuinely despise each other.

And for those of you who suffered here at BCB (a couple of BCB readers, Bartlett Bob and zambranofan, joined us in the bleachers today)... I guess all I can say is, it's early, apart from today the team has played consistently well. As Z said himself in his postgame comments, they just have to pick up and play tomorrow in St. Louis and get back to winning.

Speaking of the next Cub/Brewer series, it is during that series that Wrigley Field will host their Midwest League affiliate Peoria Chiefs taking on the Kane County Cougars, at 7:05 pm on Tuesday, July 29, and for people who can't get Cub tickets because they are either unavailable or unaffordable, this is a chance to see the Cubs' future at a reasonable price:

Tickets will be available tomorrow at 9 a.m. on www.cubs.com and will range from $10 for Terrace Reserved seats, Upper Deck Reserved seats and the general admission bleachers; $12 for terrace box seats; and $15 for club and field box seats, bleacher box seats and upper deck box seats. A total of 280 designated premium seats, priced from $25-$30, will also be available as part of tomorrow's on-sale event.

Also note that:

If the Cubs sell more than 10,000 tickets for the game, it will count as one of the team's night games.

There's no preference given to Cub season ticket holders for this event, so I intend to be online tomorrow at 9 am (CDT) along with the rest of you, because I want to be part of this event, too. Besides seeing Cub prospects, it will mark the return of Ryne Sandberg to Wrigley Field in a baseball uniform for the first time since 1997, as the Chiefs' manager:

"It's an opportunity for everybody involved," Sandberg said Thursday at Wrigley. "It's a chance of a lifetime for some of these players to come here and play a game at Wrigley Field. I'm excited about it, and I know the fans will have some fun with the game."

Fleetwood Mac sang the lyrics at the top of this post. The Cubs will have to pick up the pieces and instead of going home, go on the road and win, starting tomorrow. I have faith in this team that they can do it. Till then.

Jason Marquis stood on the mound at Wrigley Field, alone on the field, tossing a baseball up and down in his hand. Up, down, up, down, several times. He did this while waiting for the umpires to shift positions and gear after plate umpire Jerry Crawford took ill during last night's 10-7 Cub loss to the Brewers.

Cubs players wait in the dugout for play to resume after the umpire delay

Eventually, Geovany Soto came out of the dugout and so did the rest of the Cubs and that's when Marquis, who had been shaky enough in the first couple of innings, completely fell apart. He wound up throwing 98 pitches in five innings, allowing ten hits and five runs, and none of the Cubs' relievers could provide any relief last night -- the only one who didn't have a run charged to him was Michael Wuertz, but he added to the carnage by walking in a run that got charged to Kevin Hart. Even the usually-reliable Jon Lieber got touched for Milwaukee's tenth run, after Mike Fontenot's bases-clearing double had turned a 9-4 apparent rout into a 9-7 "hey, maybe they can come back" score.

It wasn't to be, and although Lou Piniella had sharp words for his bullpen in his postgame press conference:

"Our pitching wasn't good tonight," Piniella said. "We've got to do a better job in the middle before we get to our short people. That's been a problem for awhile."

... that wasn't the main problem. The main issue last night was the fact that Ben Sheets also wasn't sharp after the delay; he wound up walking seven, but the Cubs left most of those runners on base, leaving seven in the first five innings. Had they taken advantage of those opportunities, they could have had Sheets bounced before the sixth, when he was eventually lifted for a pinch-hitter (having thrown 108 pitches), and gotten into the Brewers' 1,325-man bullpen -- which managed to shut the Cubs down in the 8th and 9th after Fontenot's double.

The other important thing last night was... well, let me tell you first about one of the funnier vendors I've seen. He walked by our section, a youngish man I hadn't seen before, carrying the metal hot-dog vending box, yelling, "Who wants a friggin' hot dog??" That generated both laughs and sales (not from me, since I had already had one earlier).

And that's the other thing. Speaking of friggin', it was friggin' cold last night. The official game-time temperature was 38, and though there was some waning sun in the western sky until it dipped below the buildings on Clark about 7:30, that sun never warmed anyone at Wrigley Field yesterday. The wind wasn't too strong -- Derrek Lee managed to loft his 8th HR of April, tying the team record for such things, into the LF bleachers in the third inning, making the score at the time 4-3 -- but it was just enough to make it so feeling my fingers and toes wasn't really possible after about that time. Despite the cold, BCB reader steinmer and a friend of his stopped by in the late innings to say hi. They were some of the few who stayed -- once the score got to 9-4, the place emptied out pretty quickly. Well, except for the Human Air Raid Siren, who decided, since our section was empty, to stand there (mostly in our way) to yell for a few minutes, until we were rescued by a guy wearing a Fukudome sweatshirt who wanted him to come to his section. He left and we didn't see -- nor hear -- him again last night.

Positive note: there's nothing wrong with Geovany Soto. He had two hits last night, including a double, and continues to pound the ball really hard.

There's not much more that can be said about this loss -- the Cubs' first of the season when they have scored four or more runs. Lou, in his press conference, gave credit to the Brewers, who do, after all, have some pretty good hitters, and not just Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, who are both off to slow starts. Corey Hart (who I advocated the Cubs acquiring a year ago) had three hits including a double and a triple; Bill Hall singled three times and had two RBI, and Mike Cameron, in his first game of the year following a 25-game suspension, also had three hits. Sometimes you just have to give credit to the other guys.

With Ryan Dempster, who has been solid all year, and Carlos Zambrano, who at last is pitching like the ace we need him to be (and with his sinker working as it did when he first burst onto the scene in 2003), going tonight and tomorrow, I still like the Cubs' chances of winning this series.

Did you know Wrigley Field had a Jumbotron? Well, it doesn't, of course, but it now does have this large monitor on the side of the camera house in CF:

Finally, Felix Pie was involved in a scary-looking collision with Rickie Weeks in the second inning, and didn't get up for a couple of hold-your-breath moments. He probably just got the wind knocked out of him, as he stayed in the game. David caught the aftermath:

Click on photos to open a larger version in a new browser window. All photos by David Sameshima