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

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

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a) A glass half empty
b) A glass half full
c) When is it going to spill?

That's an old Cub fan joke, and maybe it isn't that funny, especially after another bad-looking loss, 8-3 to the Giants, but if you're getting that "sky is falling" feeling this morning, think about this: You could be a Brewers fan, having just watched your team blow a five-run ninth inning lead to the Diamondbacks and lose 6-5 when three Milwaukee relievers faced seven Arizona hitters in the 9th and got none of them out.

Or, you could be a Cardinals fan, having just watched your team get blown out 11-1 by a mediocre Mets team (remember? the team the Cubs beat 7-1 and 8-1 in Chicago in April?) and having Tony LaRussa treat one of his kid starters, Mitchell Boggs, like he did Jason Marquis two years ago and leave him on the mound for six innings to take an 10-hit, 6-walk, 11-run pounding.

Feel better now? Since Carlos Zambrano walked off the mound in Tampa on June 18, making all of us cringe as he called the coaching and training staff out to look at his right shoulder, the Cubs are 6-8. Yet, they have lost exactly one game of their division lead since that date, and tonight Z takes the mound in St. Louis in a matchup of the teams with the two best records in the National League, in a series the Cubs really have to win, if for no other reason than to actually prove to themselves that they can win a series on the road -- they haven't since the series I attended in Toronto three weekends ago.

They should have won the series in San Francisco instead of splitting it -- especially after scoring three runs off Tim Lincecum, a run total he's allowed only six times in his 18 starts this year. Sean Gallagher had one bad inning, the second, in which he allowed all four of his runs, and the last one scored when Geovany Soto dropped a Ray Durham popup that allowed the fourth (unearned) run to score. In fairness, the wind was howling pretty good yesterday and that took the ball from foul to fair territory, away from Geovany. Still, if he catches it, Mark DeRosa's two-run double in the sixth would have tied the game instead of just making it 4-3 and then who knows?

What I do know is that Jose Ascanio is likely headed back to Iowa today when Z is activated (and Gallagher's headed to the bullpen). Despite having a good arm, Ascanio has had a penchant for helping turn close games into blowouts. He did it last Sunday at the Cell when he allowed a two-run HR by Jim Thome that turned a 3-1 deficit into a virtually insurmountable 5-1 lead, and again yesterday when he misplayed Omar Vizquel's bunt. Vizquel is an excellent bunter, but the one in the 7th yesterday might have been turned into a double play with a better-fielding pitcher. At the very least it should have resulted in an out; Lou had very little patience with his bullpen yesterday, pulling Ascanio right after that and then yanking his replacement, Carlos Marmol, after Marmol threw exactly three pitches to Rich Aurilia, the third of which was deposited in the LF bleachers to make the score 7-3, effectively ending the game.

You want to worry about Marmol? Go ahead, because so am I (and so is Lou). Including his meltdown in Tampa on June 19, Marmol in his last seven appearances has pitched five innings, allowed five hits, seven walks and three HR for ten earned runs and an 18.00 ERA. I don't know what's wrong with him; if he's hurt he needs to get to the DL, and if he's not, something has to be turned around quickly because the Cubs can't win games without him.

The shadows at Phone Holding Company Park weren't a factor till about the seventh inning; at game time the entire field was still in bright sunshine, but that didn't help the Cubs hit Tim Lincecum that well. He still struck out eight in his six innings.

So while you might think things are collapsing, take heart. Z returns tonight. Alfonso Soriano's going to start hitting off a tee tonight, in anticipation of a rehab assignment and possibly a return by next weekend. The Cubs still have the third-best record in baseball, behind the Rays and Angels, and maintain a 2.5 game division lead.

I woke up Sunday after a hot, sticky, stormy day Saturday and found myself transported into November.

That's what it felt like on the South Side of Chicago last night -- cold, windy, with nasty little rainshowers that kept poking at us, reminding us how dreary this series was. If that wasn't bad enough, the Cubs played like the weather, cold and dank, in losing 5-1 to the White Sox, completing the sweep of revenge for the Sox' sweep at the hands of the Cubs last weekend.

The Cubs' play matched the gloom and mist and fog that enveloped the Cell for most of last evening. There seemed as many, if not more, Cubs fans there than last year (when the Cubs swept), but there was little for any of us to cheer about; the Cubs weren't really in last night's game despite going into the bottom of the eighth trailing only 3-1, a lead that went from "maybe we can come back" to "forget it" when Jose Ascanio gave up a two-run homer to Jim Thome after retiring the first two Sox hitters in that inning on easy ground balls.

Lou Piniella -- perhaps wisely -- didn't stick around for most of it, getting himself tossed by substitute umpire Rob Drake for arguing a check-swing call on Joe Crede that went the Sox' way in the second inning. Replays showed that call could have gone either way, and Sean Marshall struck out Crede anyway. But by then the Cubs had already blown their best opportunity to get back in the game. Henry Blanco had a terrific at-bat, fouling off three Mark Buehrle pitches after running the count full, and then drawing a walk -- Buehrle was a bit wild early, and Blanco's walk loaded the bases. Ronny Cedeno, with a chance to be a hero and give the Cubs the lead, swung at Buehrle's first pitch and hit a lazy fly ball to center.

Meanwhile, Marshall was nearly matching Buehrle, except for two mistakes: the balls that Carlos Quentin and Brian Anderson hit out of the yard that gave the Sox all the runs they needed. Marshall threw 93 pitches in 7 innings and probably could have come out to throw the 8th; I didn't necessarily disagree with Alan Trammell's decision to put Ascanio in the game, but Marshall might have kept the score to a manageable 3-1, which would have made the two baserunners the Cubs got on base to lead off the 9th much more meaningful. Even at that, if Jim Edmonds' line drive goes two feet higher or to the left or right, it's a two-run double and the tying run would have come to the plate.

But it didn't, and so the Cubs head to the West Coast with their first four-game losing streak of the year. Let me play glass-half-full guy for a moment: the Cubs still have the second-best record in baseball (at this moment, the best record is held by... the Tampa Bay Rays, who moved into first place in the AL East with their win over Pittsburgh and Boston's loss to Houston). They still have a 2.5 game lead over the Cardinals. It's not just the Cubs who had trouble in interleague play -- only the Mets, Braves and Reds had winning records from the NL over AL teams in the just-concluded interleague stretch. The Cubs are heading to play the team with the worst home record in the majors (the Giants are 14-24 at home). And the injured players will begin to return soon, starting with Carlos Zambrano, who is ready to go for his scheduled start in St. Louis on Friday.

It would have helped if Derrek Lee hadn't had such a strange series (two GIDP on Friday, then 5-for-5 on Saturday, then three K's last night), or if Aramis Ramirez hadn't clearly had family troubles on his mind all weekend, probably contributing to his 0-for-13 weekend, and also causing him to miss the first three games in San Francisco.

Creativity points to the woman in my section holding up a sign which read: "CUBS: Enjoying your sentence at the Cell?" (Answer from me: no) And after two relatively peaceful days, fights broke out both in the left field corner and also on the third-base side in the upper deck, perhaps both fueled by too much drinking on a Sunday when fans could party all day before a night game. And to Sox management: there aren't enough restrooms; they can't handle a capacity crowd. Lines snaked far outside the women's rooms most of the night and I missed a couple of batters in the 5th when I got stuck myself in long lines for the men's room (sorry! couldn't wait till the 7th!). While it seemed there were about 35-40% Cub fans in the house all weekend (including Pink Hat Guy, who is normally seen on TV behind the plate at Wrigley Field -- how did I know this? He was wearing a pink hat reading "THE PINK HAT GUY"), we had little to cheer about, and by game's end last night, many Cub fans had left. To the Sox fans in attendance, credit to you too, believe it or not: there wasn't a huge amount of "Cubs suck!" chants in evidence, and the Sox fans actually seemed happier that THEY won that that WE lost -- as it should be, focused on their own team's success. Just as the Cubs have been superb at home this year, so have the Sox (27-11 at home), including a four-game sweep of the suddenly-hot Twins, so I don't think this series is necessarily any indication that the Cubs are in trouble.

Statistical oddity: how evenly matched are these teams? After 12 seasons of interleague play, each team has won 33 games. Each team has won 19 at home and 14 on the road... and the White Sox have outscored the Cubs by one run in the 66 games, 323-322.

Mike summed it up best when we talked before the game. "The circus is over," he said. "Let's get back to baseball." Amen. Till tonight.

There's no way to sugarcoat today's 10-3 Cub loss to the White Sox, so I won't.

As bad as the Cubs looked in yesterday's loss to Baltimore, they just about matched it in looking bad against the White Sox this afternoon -- their first loss to the Sox after six straight wins dating back to a three-game sweep on the South Side a year ago. It's their first loss at the Ballmall since May 20, 2006, a game which was notable for extracurricular activities more than the win or loss.

We won't head back in that direction now -- only say that this had better be a two-game aberration, because this game looked disturbingly like yesterday's. The Cubs had chances in the first and third innings and both times, Derrek Lee erased them by hitting into an inning-ending double play. This is how bad that has gotten -- that's 19 GIDP for D-Lee, a career high for a season for him even though only half this season is gone, and with half this year in the books that would put him on pace to break the single-season record, 36, set by Jim Rice in 1984. I'm worried about D-Lee; after a fast start and a bit of a slump, he seemed to be coming out of it recently, but has looked really bad this week. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to give him tomorrow off.

Ryan Dempster should have taken this day off -- he had absolutely nothing today, allowing seven hits and two walks among the sixteen batters he faced, capped by Nick Swisher's grand slam that put the game pretty much out of reach at 8-0 before the third inning had ended. Frankly, I was surprised that Lou didn't yank Dempster after he walked Jim Thome and Joe Crede to load the bases. Jon Lieber was ready, Dempster clearly had no clue, and maybe Lieber could have come in and gotten a ground ball to get the Cubs out of the inning. If that happens it's only 4-0 and maybe the Cubs make a bit of a comeback, instead of just getting three solo home runs as the proverbial "lovely parting gifts".

At least Lou used Lieber properly, as a long reliever today, having him eat up more than three innings, lifting him only after 53 pitches and a lefthander (Thome) at bat; Neal Cotts came in (to virtually no reaction from Sox fans even though he was a big part of their WS team in 2005) and dispatched Thome to end that inning. Lieber has now thrown two days in a row so don't expect to see him tomorrow.

So all the angst given about Daryle Ward in right field was wasted; Ward had three balls hit to him, all of which he fielded without too much effort. What we really need to discuss here is Eric Patterson.

I don't care about his "versatility". I don't care about his speed, or the handful of walks he's drawn. Eric Patterson is simply not a major league player. He made one error and allowed Orlando Cabrera to take second base on a routine fly ball to left in the first inning, which allowed Cabrera to score on Carlos Quentin's single. Obviously, in the larger context of the game those plays meant little, but psychologically, maybe they eroded some of Dempster's confidence (I can see him thinking, "What's the kid going to screw up next out there?"). Patterson doesn't seem to have baseball smarts. The Cubs really need someone else out there, maybe Matt Murton, who at least can play a competent left field, even if he doesn't hit lefthanded, something Lou seems to be overly obsessed with.

The crowd at the Cell was on its feet early and often, but after the big inning was somewhat subdued, possibly because of the annoying little rainshower that passed through the middle innings, never heavy enough to stop play. Actually, the most annoying fans in my section were a number of drunk Cubs fans, one of whom insisted on whistling very loudly into the ear of a young female Sox fan sitting in front of him. She asked him nicely to stop, and not only did he refuse, but he became nasty. Idiot fan behavior knows no team colors, as I am sure you all know.

The park itself is pretty much the same as it was a year ago when I was last there; because of the multiple renovations and additions there are some oddities that can become irritating. For example, because of the "Fundamentals" thing that was squeezed in above left field, you cannot see the main LF scoreboard from most of the seats from just past 3B to behind the bullpen, probably about 15-20% of the entire lower deck (you can't see it from the lower rows of the bleachers, either, as I found out last year, because a beer stand is in the way). Stopping by my seat was former Vine Line editor Jim McArdle, working on a book about this season, to shoot the breeze for a few innings.

At this writing, fortunately, the Cardinals are losing to the Royals in Kansas City 4-0 in the fifth inning and thanks to BCB reader Galvan316 for starting this FanPost discussion thread for anyone who wants to talk about that game. If that score holds up, so does the Cubs' 4.5 game lead.

It was a bad day at the ballpark (though there was virtually no traffic on my way back to the North Side, unusual for a Friday evening); relax, root for the Royals, and Sean Gallagher's going to get 'em tomorrow.