When, in the third inning last night, Carlos Zambrano stalked around the mound briefly, causing trainer Mark O'Neal and Lou Piniella to run out and check him out, we figured it might have been another cramping episode and that they'd have to send him back to the clubhouse for a banana break.

Turned out to be something much more prosaic, as revealed in the postgame news conference: in his last start in Cincinnati, Z had scraped his arm diving back into first base after his fifth-inning single, and the scab had come off. That, plus the rather biting cold last night, caused Z to come back for the next inning wearing long sleeves.

That solved the problem, though Mike thinks he might just need more bananas (along with some thoughts about how D-Lee and Dome might approach a Cub fan's loyalty test):

Click on cartoon to open a larger version in a new browser window

It was that kind of night, as the Cubs had yet another laugher of a win, 12-3 over the hapless Padres, and yet another amazing thing about this team, first revealed by Len Kasper on the telecast (and repeated by Cory Provus on the postgame radio show, if you're wondering where I heard this): the Cubs have now had thirteen different innings in which they've scored five or more runs.

We're simply not used to this kind of thing. They're leading the major leagues in runs scored with 223 -- by a considerable margin over the Red Sox, second with 209. The nine walks drawn last night give them 183 for the season. That's almost half of what they drew in 2006, Dusty Baker's last season, 395 -- in fewer than one-quarter the number of games. I'll make sure to make note here when they pass the '06 team -- it may be before the end of June. And if you're wondering: the club record for walks in a season is 650, set in 1975 (yeah, I was surprised to find that out too, as that team finished badly after a hot start; no one on that team walked 100 or more times, though six walked 60 or more). Right now the average of 4.8 walks per game would shatter that record; they are on pace for 780. The 5.86 runs per game average would mean 950 runs over a full season.

Ain't this fun?

The Cubs came from behind again last night; Z just couldn't keep the Padres bats totally silent, and they went into the bottom of the fifth with a 2-1 lead. Z led off with a double off the wall that looked, at first, as if it might be his 2nd HR of the year. No matter, Alfonso Soriano followed with his fourth HR of the season and after that... well, everyone hit. Or walked. The only one of the starting nine who didn't get a hit last night was Kosuke Fukudome. But he had three walks, scored twice, and got an RBI when he walked with the bases loaded. Ryan Theriot had three hits; Derrek Lee two (and a stolen base, which, like Aramis Ramirez' on Sunday, looked like it came off a missed sign). Ramirez had an RBI single, a walk, and scored twice. And after Kevin Kouzmanoff couldn't beat Aramis Ramirez to 3B, making Ramirez safe and giving Mark DeRosa a hit, Kouzmanoff threw the ball in the general direction of the corner of Addison & Sheffield, allowing three runs to score. Padres manager Bud Black then yanked Kouzmanoff from the game. Yes, I know it wasn't for that reason -- Kouzmanoff had made the last out of the previous inning and was the obvious choice for a double-switch for Black's pitching change -- but it wound up being unintentional humor.

Ain't this fun?

Lou must be having fun, because he sounded exhausted on the radio during the postgame press conference, almost as if he had spent the evening running around the bases himself.

While the Cubs are clicking on all cylinders -- five out of their last six, 15-6 overall at home -- I wanted to comment here about the latest Jim Edmonds rumor. Bruce Miles reports:

The Cubs are having serious internal discussions on whether to sign center fielder Jim Edmonds, cut loose by the San Diego Padres.

General manager Jim Hendry could not comment Monday on Edmonds, who must first clear waivers, much as Reed Johnson had to during spring training before the Cubs signed him after Toronto let him go.

Some quarters in the Cubs' front office are taking a "why not?" approach to taking a flyer on Edmonds, all the while wanting to know about his health, whether he can still play and how good a fit he will be in the clubhouse.

I'll tell you "why not": he's done. I guess I can't fault management for doing their due diligence, but obviously, he'd be signed to replace Felix Pie on the roster. And why is this? Because Lou clearly doesn't trust Pie, doesn't want to give him a shot, and if you look at Pie's record so far in the major leagues, the answer to the question "Can Pie hit major league pitching?" is, "We don't know yet!"

Pie has played 117 major league games over a season and a quarter. The longest stretch of games he has started and finished during that time is nine (last June). This season, his longest such stretch is four games -- the first four of the season.

Now I ask you -- how can ANY hitter get any consistent rhythm going if he doesn't play? How can Pie learn how to face major league pitching and see enough pitches and different pitchers to hit if they won't give him a chance?

He needs to be out there every day at least against RHP. If the Cubs insist on signing a washed-up, injured, 38-year-old centerfielder who was released by a team in desperate need of hitting, at least send Jim Edmonds to Iowa for a week or two first, and let Pie play.

The bottom line is: the Cubs are 23-15, winners of four in a row and five of six, and scoring metric buttloads of runs. Why mess with success? Please, Jim. Don't do it.

Finally, to discuss this screaming Sun-Times headline from today:

... go to blackhawk24's FanPost.

Just before Ted Lilly stroked his RBI single up the middle, I said to Howard, "Man, he has about the worst swing I've ever seen." Howard agreed. Lilly had fouled a couple of balls off and flailed rather wildly at the pitches, looking like he had never stepped in a batter's box before.

And then, suddenly, with runners on first and second, Reed Johnson having been intentionally walked by Dan Haren to get to Lilly, Ted sliced a ball through the infield to score the Cubs' first run and score Mark DeRosa, who had doubled with two out and no one on (love to see that!), to tie the game. Alfonso Soriano hit the next pitch down the left-field line for a double, scoring Johnson, and as it turned out, that was all Lilly needed in the Cubs' impressive 3-1 win over the Diamondbacks. I'm not sure where Lilly learned to hit -- he hit only .137 in 2007 -- but he's now 3-for-11 this year (.273) with a double and two RBI.

You could call this a "statement" game if you wish, but it may be too early to say that. Remember, though the D'backs have looked great in posting, before today, a 23-12 record for the best mark in the major leagues, a year ago at this time the Brewers were 24-10 and a lot of you were wailing, "The Cubs will never catch those guys!" And yet, they did. And though Arizona is playing well, today the Cubs and Lilly and Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood shut them down.

Lilly was outstanding -- he mixed up his pitches really well and struck out ten while walking only two and allowing only three harmless hits. OK, let's call it two harmless hits (one of which, a triple by Stephen Drew past a diving Johnson, might have been caught by Felix Pie if he had been out there), because the first one was a HR by Chris Young in the first inning -- and I was so glad to not see Lilly slam his glove down as he did in the NLDS last October. In the last ten games Young has played against the Cubs (the six regular season games last year, the three in the NLDS and today), he has homered five times. Enough, already.

Fortunately, Lilly shut down the rest of the D'backs lineup, and left it to Marmol and Wood. Marmol caught a break in the 8th when, after allowing a leadoff single to pinch-hitter Augie Ojeda, he struck out Eric Byrnes while Ojeda tried to steal second. The throw came in over DeRosa's head and he had to leap to stop it from going in to CF. The umpires correctly ruled that Byrnes had interfered with Geovany Soto and thus Ojeda was out. No other D'back came near to getting on base after that, and Kerry Wood threw nine pitches, all strikes, in getting a 1-2-3 ninth for his sixth save, after Derrek Lee had hit his ninth HR to give a little more breathing room.

The crisply played game (two hours and 31 minutes) was played in crisp weather more suited to the last time the D'backs were in Wrigley Field, last October 6 (when it was 85 degrees), an official temperature of 46 at gametime, with a wind blowing in. That didn't stop the HR of either Young or D-Lee, though, and I'm sure most of the crowd of 40,236 (probably about 5,000 no-shows today) appreciated the fast pace. I know I did, along with fellow BCB readers mrcubsfan, ihatethecards, and Drew in attendance in the bleachers. Mrcubsfan and ihatethecards introduced me to a man who said his last trip to Wrigley was sixty years ago when he was fourteen years old, to which I said: "It's about time you came back!" And he got to see a nicely played win on his return, too.

Just like that, this team that looked so sloppy on the road the last couple of weeks played a sharp game today. It is possible to have a very successful season playing, say, .600 ball at home (that'd be 49 or 50 wins) and .500 on the road -- do that and you've won 90, which would likely give you the division title. This one snaps a five-game losing streak against Arizona (including the NLDS) and I'm sure the players are happy to have that proverbial monkey off their backs. And with Lilly, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Zambrano all throwing well, can we stop stressing so much about the starting pitching?

Remember: tomorrow's game is on Fox, and the starting time has been set at 2:40 CDT. I'll post a list of cities tomorrow in the game thread -- double bad news: it's only going to 37% of the country and the announcers are Kenny Albert and Mark Grace. (Ugh.) Incidentally, I had to visit the men's room and the timing had it during the 7th-inning stretch. There's nothing stranger than hearing the disembodied voice of Mark Grace coming through the men's room speakers while visiting the troughs. Or maybe that's strangely appropriate, I don't know which.

Finally, I see that a couple of you posted game threads in the FanPost section -- and I'm not sure what happened to the main page posts. If someone could quickly summarize in the comments, I'd appreciate it.

Raise your hand if you still think there's something wrong with Geovany Soto.

Just as I thought -- no hands raised. Soto smashed two home runs last night. But look at this photo for people raising their hands for Soto for the right reason -- here's what our section looked like after the first one landed just a few rows below us (yes, that's us in the top row, me bundled against the cold in a blue coat, behind BCB reader ballstitch, in a burgundy Florida State sweatshirt, arm raised):

Soto's two HR and six RBI, both career highs, led a 17-hit, nine-walk attack (eight of the nine walks coming from the fifth through the eighth inning) and the Cubs demolished the Brewers 19-5, the most runs the Cubs have scored in almost exactly seven years, since May 5, 2001, when the Cubs took a garden-variety 4-1 lead into the seventh and then scored eight runs in consecutive innings and smashed the Dodgers 20-1.

Balls were really jumping out of the yard during batting practice, many sailing over our heads. So since my friend Sue showed up last night, and she likes to organize Home Run Derby in our section, we played. BCB reader ballstitch sat with us along with a friend of his, and the friend had Soto in the pool. He was in the men's room when Soto hit his second HR in the fourth, and when he returned we didn't say a word until he asked, "Did Soto hit another HR?" First, I said, "You have to be present to win", and then we all paid up.

It was that kind of fun night both for fans and players. The game was pretty much over in the first inning, when the Cubs sent ten men to the plate and scored six runs, smacking singles and doubles all over the place -- you don't have to hit only three-run homers to score tons of runs -- and Ryan Dempster, who had a single himself in that six-run first, threw well enough to win with that kind of offensive onslaught, although he labored in later innings, throwing 108 pitches in six innings and issuing five walks. His command and control are going to have to get better to continue to win, because obviously, the Cubs aren't going to score this many runs every day.

It's fun when they do, though, isn't it? Leading 13-5 in the 8th, the Cubs piled on Brewers reliever Derrick Turnbow, who had absolutely nothing last night -- he gave up four hits and four walks, and was charged with six runs, making his ERA an unsightly 15.63 (Jeff Suppan, the Brewer starter, allowed eight earned runs; his ERA, 3.48 at gametime, jumped to 5.19). Ryan Theriot got a RBI with a bases-loaded walk, and then Ronny Cedeno came up with the chance to hit his second grand slam of the month. (Read that again; would you have believed a phrase like that a year ago?)

He nearly got it, too; his bases-clearing double hit off the right-center field wall. It got so bad that Ned Yost, who had clearly wanted to save his 2,756 relievers for another day and wanted Turnbow to finish the inning, had to yank him after 43 (!) pitches and finish the inning with lefty Mitch Stetter.

Discordant note: Bob Howry, put in the game with a 13-3 lead to work out some of his early-season troubles, instead raised his own ERA to 8.10 by allowing a two-run HR to Brewers backup catcher Mike Rivera, who came into the game at 1B after Yost cleared his bench. Lou Piniella did so too, wisely giving Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome and Soto some rest and giving all five of his bench position players some playing time. In the 8th inning, pinch-hitter Mike Fontenot nearly got to bat a second time.

So the Cubs finish April with a 17-10 record; the 17 wins is the most ever for a Cub team in the month of April, though that record is a bit misleading -- teams play so many more games now in April than they did years ago. The previous record, 16, set in 1969, was posted in 23 games (16-7). The 27 games played since March 31 is exactly one-sixth of the season; match the 17-10 record, not an unreasonable thing to do, five more times and you will wind up 102-60. I'm not saying the Cubs will do this, or that it would be easy to do this, only that it is possible.

Derrek Lee tied the team record for HR in April, eight, originally set by Lee Walls in 1958. The 1958 Cubs played only 13 games in April -- and Walls hit his eight in an eight-day, seven-game stretch, as follows:

4/23: 1
4/24: 3
4/25: 0
4/26: 1
4/27: 0
4/28: off day
4/29: 2
4/30: 1

And for the kicker: all eight were hit on the road, in the new major league cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Walls hit 24 HR in 1958, never more than 11 in any other season, sort of the Tuffy Rhodes of his era.

Enjoy these -- they don't come around very often. We spotted "Friggin' Hot Dog Vendor" again last night and this time decided to buy some from him -- they were friggin' good. Also thanks to BCB reader cubsonWGN4ever, who stopped by to say hi last night. With Carlos Zambrano going this afternoon, the Cubs are in good position to win the series -- and then say goodbye to the Brewers for almost three months, because they won't meet them until the last week of July at Miller Park, and not again at Wrigley until mid-September. Today's game thread will be up at 11 am CDT.

More photos from last night:

Derrek Lee slides into second on his first-inning double

This Felix Pie AB resulted in a foul ball... but look at Prince Fielder's reaction.

Matt Murton, Felix Pie and Reed Johnson celebrate last night's win. Click on photos to open a larger version in a new browser window. All photos by David Sameshima

With the first extended stretch of games complete and another off day today, I finally had time to sit down last night and watch "Cubs Forever", the wonderful two-hour retrospective of sixty years of Cubs baseball televised on WGN, which the station first aired last week (it's being re-aired at 7 pm CDT this coming Saturday in case you missed it or want to put it on your DVR). The link above is to the book version of the show, incidentally, and it doesn't specifically say so, but the publisher's website says there's a companion DVD. I'd buy it just for that.

In addition to some great old video -- some of which I hadn't seen since the day it aired years ago -- the thing that struck me most and affected me most were the comments from every single person they interviewed, from fans to employees to Hollywood types to former players, talking about what will happen when the Cubs finally do win the World Series. Basically, if you haven't seen this, they all said, "It'll be the celebration to end all celebrations."

And what that says to me is that they "get it". They understand, all those who have played as Cubs; Andre Dawson, in particular, said he'd want to be in Wrigley Field on that day, because his six years in a Cub uniform, only a third of his major league career (much as we'd love him to go into the Hall of Fame as a Cub, if he is eventually elected, I suspect the Hall -- who now makes the choice, not the player -- will put an Expos cap on his plaque, because he had his best seasons in Montreal), gave him the feeling we all have. That being a Cub fan is special. That being a Cub is special. Eric Karros said it, even playing just one season here: "Every major leaguer should spend a year as a Chicago Cub."

Some of the current players understand this, too, including Derrek Lee, who is now in his fifth year here (can it really be that long already?); D-Lee was interviewed for the show and said (I'm paraphrasing) that the current team is working hard to win for everyone that's gone before and never made it. And I've put this quote from Mark DeRosa in the quote box on the right sidebar, but it bears more prominent repeating here:

I stayed at home the other night and watched that "Cubs Forever" show. Every once in a while teams should be forced to watch stuff like that and realize how much it means to the city and to the ex-players that have been here, and how lucky we are to get a chance to put on the uniform and play in front of these people.

Amen, Mark. You understand. Because when you strip away the stats and the analysis and the little details and arguments that all of us get into on a daily basis because we disagree about ways that we all think would be the best way for the Cubs to be put together, either roster-wise or lineup-wise, the bottom line is this: each of us fell in love with the Cubs, for different reasons and in different places and times, and have suffered loss after loss, year after year of failure. And when they do finally win, all the players on the field that day will be winning for themselves, but also for all those who came before -- and for all of us, because without our support, without our following, where would they be?

May that victory come soon.

There's a somewhat related topic that rumbled through my mind as I was ruminating about writing this post last night and this morning, and that is, that in addition to our support and fandom making the livings of baseball players possible, so does it make the existence of ESPN (and its associated website) and MLB.com possible. Why, then, do these institutions insist on continuing to give us people and websites that we ... well, I'll be nice: that we just... don't... like?

ESPN's top baseball broadcast team is universally detested by just about every baseball fan. This is something that never used to be the case; when people like Bob Costas and Vin Scully and Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola were the national broadcasters, they were chosen not just for their broadcast competence and baseball knowledge, but because the viewers of the broadcasts actually enjoyed listening to them. That just doesn't seem to be the case today; it's almost as if ESPN is saying, "Screw you, we're doing this anyway."

And setting aside the TV blackout nonsense -- another issue entirely -- why does MLB.com have such a miserable setup for watching and listening to games? And why did they redesign their team websites this spring in a way that makes them bloated and unusable for many users? It's almost as if they have given their sites over to people who have contempt for the people who are trying to use them. And yes, I am well aware that some of you have had trouble with adjusting to the redesign of BCB and other SBN sites -- but give Trei and his team credit, they are listening to you and me and they're making changes (and remember, this platform is still a beta platform and more changes and fixes will be coming).

Without us, ESPN would not exist. MLB.com would not exist. You'd think they'd at least listen to us, their best customers.

I've rambled on long enough. This ought to give you some things to think about and rant about till the Cubs take the field again tomorrow night.

The Cubs were shut out by the Nationals 2-0 this afternoon -- the first time they have been shut out this year.

That took 25 games. For perspective, here's a list of the first game in which the Cubs were shut out in the twelve seasons before 2008:

2007: game 11
2006: game 23
2005: game 7
2004: game 19
2003: game 21
2002: game 21
2001: game 23
2000: game 27
1999: game 17
1998: game 13
1997: game 6
1996: game 23

So in all but one season -- and that happened to be a pretty bad year, actually, 2000 -- the Cubs were shut out earlier than the 25 games it took in 2008. This offense is pretty good -- it just got shut down today.

This was posted by BCB reader cwyers in the comments in the overflow thread, and in case you haven't seen that, and even if you have, it bears repeating:

The spread in talent between major league ballclubs is pretty small when you take a step back and look at it from a distance; the Nationals only look like a really bad ballclub when you compare them to other major league teams. And even then, we tend to exaggerate the difference in quality between two teams.

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. The good teams tend to win more and the bad teams tend to lose more, but that’s over a 162 game season. In ONE game, any team in the majors, even the Giants, has enough talent to win.

It’s not a problem about "being in their heads," or being tired, or being mentally weak, or whatever character defects the armchair shrinks like to ascribe to sheer random chance. This happens, and it happens all the time. The difference between the best and worst record in baseball last season was only sixty games of 162.

What you do is you tip your cap to the other team, and you move on to play the next game.

Couldn't have said it better, although I will quibble a bit with one assertion that Colin made: I think the Cubs are tired after playing 13 games in three time zones over the last 13 days. Four different times in that 13-day stretch, they played a night game after a day game, and that can really screw up your body clock, especially considering that the first seven games of this season were all day games, and that's after playing a month of day games in Arizona (there was one split-squad night game during spring training).

(Also, wasn't the difference between best and worst in 2007 thirty games, not sixty?)

This isn't to offer excuses, and you might say, "How can they be tired after not even one month?" But given the cross-country travel of this bizarre "if it's Wednesday, this must be Denver" road trip, switching game times and time zones, I can see how the Cubs would have come out a little bit flat this afternoon.

So, give credit to John Lannan, who kept the Cubs off balance all day, and to Jon Rauch, who had Daryle Ward swinging at a pitch to end the game as if Ward were saying, "Enough of this game, let's go home." The Cubs had two big chances to chase Lannan and put the game away -- in the fifth when they caught a break on Nick Johnson's error and loaded the bases with one out, only to have Ryan Theriot hit into a soul-sucking double play, and again in the sixth when they again had runners on second and third with one out. Groundouts from Mark DeRosa and Ronny Cedeno took care of that.

Too bad, because for the second straight start, Ted Lilly threw pretty well. A pair of two-out singles in the second inning scored the only runs the Nationals got all day. The Nats had only four singles, and the two walks Lilly issued (neither of which were involved in the scoring). Michael Wuertz and Kerry Wood also threw well today, as did Sean Marshall, getting out of the 7th inning after walking pinch-hitter Aaron Boone.

So, as Colin said: tip your cap to the other guys (who the Cubs, under this year's pick 'em schedule, won't see again for almost four months, till late August at Wrigley Field), enjoy the day of rest -- actually, closer to two days off with the next game not being till Tuesday night -- and get ready for another series with the Brewers.

Two series with the Brewers at home in April and none in Milwaukee till July? That's a topic for another day.

Well he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
Well he's just an excitable boy...
-- Warren Zevon

Those of us who have followed Carlos Zambrano's career from day one know that he's very, very excitable. Last night there were times when I thought his head was going to blow right off his shoulders when he didn't get a couple of close ball/strike calls, as plate umpire Jim Wolf's strike zone did seem a little strange last night. To Wolf's credit, it was at least consistent for both teams. He also had a very slow strike call -- don't you hate that? I know the players do -- in the fourth inning Derrek Lee started to walk to first base on a 3-2 count on a pitch that looked like ball four, only to be called out on strikes. (Speaking of umpires, umpire Kerwin Danley was injured when hit by a Brad Penny pitch in the Dodgers/Rockies game in Los Angeles last night. He was taken to a local hospital and let's hope he's OK.)

The called K was just about the only thing D-Lee did wrong in last night's 7-0 Cub shutout of the Nationals, their first shutout of the season. Lee singled, doubled, walked twice, scored twice and drove in three runs, as Z pitched his best game of the year, allowing only four singles and a double, lowering his ERA to 2.21. He did issue four walks -- nearly doubling his previous total for the entire season of five -- but was never really in trouble, and the Cubs breezed through this game, scoring three times in the first inning on a Lee RBI single and, after Kosuke Fukudome had walked to load the bases, Mark DeRosa singled for two runs. Five of the first six Cubs reached base. It was the Cubs' 16th win in April, tying the club record for wins in April, set in... 1969.

Fukudome was about the only Cub who didn't contribute much last night -- too bad, because he was celebrating his 31st birthday. Geovany Soto also had a tough night at the plate, going 0-for-5 and striking out all five times. BCB reader bluekoolaide's FanPost asks "What's wrong with Soto?" but I don't think anything's wrong other than he's having a rough patch, which can happen to anyone. He'll likely get today off, which would be expected anyway (day game after a night game) and thus can rest till Tuesday night when the Cubs come home to face the Brewers. Incidentally, the Yahoo AP recap of the game says:

Cubs C Geovany Soto struck out five times, each time against a different Washington pitcher.

That's a pretty good trick, considering the Nats used only four pitchers last night.

Other good things last night: Michael Wuertz, who has struggled, threw a scoreless inning, issuing a leadoff walk but then inducing a double-play ball; Jon Lieber threw an efficient ninth (14 pitches, making him probably available today again if needed), and ONEDEC had three more hits. When Alfonso Soriano comes off the DL and DeRosa returns to 2B, Lou will have a choice to make between ONEDEC and Ryan Theriot at SS. The logical thing would be to play ONEDEC, but Theriot has also hit. I don't want to start the Theriot firestorm again, but Lou likes playing the hot hand. There will be some choices to be made, and isn't that a nice problem to have? It's clear that Ronny Cedeno has, perhaps at last, figured out what he needs to do to be a solid regular major league player. He's earned playing time.

Once again, I commend all of you to BCB reader 08cubs' FanPost; he was at the game and has an excellent recap including photos.

Note about the Nationals: I have seen plenty of big men on a baseball field. But there is no way around this: Nats catcher Johnny Estrada is FAT. I know that's not a politically correct way of saying it... but geez, how does that guy crouch 100+ times a game? No wonder the Brewers dumped him. In 15 games he's 7-for-32, but has failed to score a run. Do you think he could go through an entire season scoreless?

So, Ted Lilly will take the mound this afternoon, trying to build on the good outing he had last Tuesday at Wrigley Field; win this game and you've had another successful road trip.

Finally, for those of you who have been so outraged about more advertising at Wrigley Field or the proposals for possible sale of the naming rights to the ballpark, during last night's game there was advertising that was genuinely annoying: during one of Fukudome's at-bats (and maybe elsewhere, too; that's the only one I actually saw) an ad for a movie opening on May 9 flashed across the CSN screen, then vanished. Unlike advertising at the ballpark, or naming rights, which can easily be ignored and don't interrupt the action, this ad DID get in the way. (And was pretty ineffective, as I can't even remember the name of the movie.) I know CSN wants to squeeze every ad dollar they can out of these telecasts, but that one was pretty ridiculous.

I'll have a game thread up later this morning. Keep the winning going.

And yes, I know it's only April. The most amazing thing about Reed Johnson's amazing catch (I realize I wrote "amazing" twice right there, but this one, if you haven't seen it before, really is worth that sort of hype) is that when he gets up, the look on his face said, "Hey, no big deal, I do this all the time." Meanwhile, the Cubs' bullpen, right behind the wall where Johnson's head hit the (fortunately) thick padding, applauded, and left fielder Mark DeRosa just stood there as if to say, "Did I really see that?" (Also take a look at Reed's cap, the bill folded back.)

The title says it all about that catch -- and even though it IS only April, when it comes to recaps of 2008 this fall, this catch will be shown on every highlight show, every "year in review" show.

Unfortunately, that was the highlight of this game, which the Cubs lost to the Nationals 5-3 when Wil Nieves hit a two-run walkoff HR off Bob Howry.

Ugh. Guys like this shouldn't hit these sorts of home runs. In fact, Nieves, who had had 162 career AB for three teams (the Padres, Yankees and Nats) over the last six years, had never hit one in the major leagues before (and in over 3400 minor league AB had only 20).

However, that's not the reason the Cubs lost this game. Here's the boxscore line that explains why the Cubs lost this game:

Team LOB - 10.

I made that big and bold because the Cubs squandered numerous opportunities, including having the bases loaded with only one out in the 8th trailing 3-2. They did tie the game when Matt Murton drew a bases-loaded walk, but then still had the bases loaded with one out... and Mike Fontenot struck out (on what looked to be a really bad pitch) and Johnson grounded out. The Cubs caught a bad break in the 5th when Kosuke Fukudome's double to LF just barely bounced into the stands, forcing Aramis Ramirez, who would have scored easily from first, to stop at third. With two runners in scoring position and two out, Mark DeRosa struck out.

One more thing bothered me about that 8th inning -- Lou's overuse of pinch hitters, trying to get the platoon advantage. Four players were used up in two AB -- wasting Daryle Ward -- and although it did result in a run when Murton walked, had the game gone into extra innings, only Felix Pie would have remained on the bench, and since Henry Blanco was used up without even getting to hit (replaced by Fontenot), there would have been no backup catcher. If Lou is going to continue to do this, the Cubs have to trim the pitching staff to 11 and get another bench player.

I thought Ryan Dempster threw another nice game -- the only mistake he made was the Nick Johnson HR in the first inning. Naturally, that followed a two-out, no one on, four-pitch walk to Ryan Zimmerman. I hate those! Not just the four-pitch walk, but the fact that Dempster didn't "close the deal" after retiring the first two hitters easily. It's as if he had too much focus and started overthrowing the ball.

Notes: Alfonso Soriano says he'll be ready to return when he's eligible to come off the DL on May 1. Hey, Alfonso: no rush. The team is 7-3 without you in the lineup (8-3 if you include the game he got hurt in, in which he barely played). And Lou Piniella likes Nationals Park, especially the home clubhouse:

"You can actually play a night game there, and just stay overnight," Piniella said. "You can get up in the morning and have the chef cook you eggs and hash browns and bacon, and you're ready to go to work the next day without having to leave."

For some in-person details and photos, check out BCB reader 08cubs' excellent FanPost, posted late last night. And hang in there -- the Cardinals and Brewers also both lost last night, which keeps the Cubs' early-season division lead at 1.5 games, and with Carlos Zambrano on the mound tonight, the chances of evening up this series are pretty good.

But please stop leaving so many runners on base.

David returned to the ballpark on this sunny Sunday and shot these four game action photos:

Top to bottom: Mark DeRosa dives for a foul fly in the first inning; Ryan Dempster lays down a perfect bunt in the second inning; Ryan Theriot slides in safely after his second double of the game in the fourth inning; Reed Johnson dives but fails to catch Jose Bautista's fly ball in the fifth. After missing this catch, Johnson made a heads-up play by holding up his hands. The ball had gotten lodged in the ivy branches, and even though it was visible, the umpires agreed it couldn't be played and called it a ground-rule double.

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

What a strange day.

It was cloudy. Then drizzling. Then sunny, on a day the forecasters swore up and down the sun would make no appearances. Then it started to rain, very lightly -- which made the three twentysomethings in front of us very happy, even when I told them (kidding!) that it would cost them $10 to sit under the big blue & white umbrella. By game's end fog was starting to roll in off the lake.

And Jason Marquis pitched like the guy we knew last April and May, shutting down the Pirates on six hits through six innings, striking out seven, doubling in a run, and the Cubs annihilated the Pirates 13-1 on a twelve-hit attack that included no fewer than ten walks (yes, count 'em, ten, clogging up the bases in the sixth inning, which then got unclogged on another bases-loaded walk, a sac fly and a two-run single by Ronny Cedeno.

Told you it was a strange day. The Cubs came out rocking in the first inning, taking the lead 2-0 on a Derrek Lee HR. Really, we could have all gone home then, because that lead would be enough (yes, of course, I know it doesn't work that way). D-Lee is now leading the major leagues in HR with 7, and last year he hit his seventh HR on July 15. Clearly, he's back to near-2005 form -- and that's great news for this offense, which isn't missing Alfonso Soriano at all (4-1 since Soriano's bunny-hop injury last Tuesday). Just sayin'.

Ryan Theriot, Geovany Soto and Cedeno all had two hits today, and Daryle Ward got his first hit of the year to cap the scoring, a two-run HR off rookie Pirates reliever Evan Meek. "Meek" is what the Pirates have been against the Cubs this season, losing all five games and looking mostly bad doing it. Tom Gorzelanny, who had such a fine year in 2007 and looked like he was going to lead a young Pirates staff to credibility this year, gave up seven runs for the second time this year to the Cubs. He got one more out this time than he did the first time, and his ERA jumped from 6.75 to 9.35. Ugly.

After Marquis, Kevin Hart threw a good inning but got in trouble in the 8th; after having thrown 33 pitches, he got pulled by Lou in favor of Michael Wuertz, who finished up uneventfully. Both Hart and Wuertz needed these good outings, as they have both been shaky lately, and this also saved the rest of the bullpen for tomorrow and the next week; the Cubs are in their first long stretch without a day off (13 consecutive days starting last Tuesday).

Other notes: Kosuke Fukudome made a nice running catch to end the fifth inning after the Pirates had scored what turned out to be their only run of the game on consecutive doubles. At 7-1, the game was probably in hand then but you wouldn't have wanted to see it get any closer than that.

I've said for a while that I thought the Giants were the worst team in baseball -- and they might, in fact, lose 100 games. But the Pirates aren't much better. What on Earth were they doing, putting Doug Mientkiewicz at third base in the sixth inning? Looking this up, I see that Mientkiewicz actually started a game at third last weekend, but before that had played third exactly once in his major league career -- in the ninth inning of a game his team was losing, coincidentally, 13-1. What is John Russell thinking? What plan does this team have? Hopefully, none anytime soon, as in this year's wacky schedule, they'll be back at Wrigley Field a month from now.

With the 13-run outburst, the second time this homestand the Cubs have scored 12 or more, they have now scored 98 runs in 17 games -- 5.76 per game. That's not likely sustainable over a long period, but at this moment the total is second in the majors (behind the Diamondbacks, pending other games tonight).

Back for a moment to the twentysomethings sitting in front of us. After a while listening to us talk and watching us keep score, they must have figured we knew some things. Mike & I got peppered with questions about Cub history -- "Who was hit by pitch the most times?" "Who's the all-time Cub RBI leader?" We wound up telling them about the recent history of Cub no-hitters, among other things, and left a BCB card, so if you guys are here -- welcome. Take off your shoes and stay a while.

I also met BCB readers TCobb1911 and... well, your friend whose posting name I can't remember. Nice to meet both of you. And incidentally, if you're wondering where David's photos are, he can't make every single game. He emailed to let me know he'll be at: all the rest of the weekend games, all night games except Mondays, and a couple of long homestands later in the year when he's taking vacation time. So I'd expect him to be at sixty or so games. He'll be in the park tomorrow.

Finally, rumor heard: the organization is very high on Jeff Samardzija, is pleased with his performance so far, and you may see him promoted to Triple-A very soon.

A strange day? Maybe. But also a productive one. Time to sweep these guys again, tomorrow.

Click here for my scorecard

Quite a number of things got reversed in today's 3-2 Cub win over the Pirates, not the least of which was the weather; predictions of possible rain rumbled by early this morning, but the only rumbles of thunder in the area were heard in the far western suburbs, and unlike yesterday (another reversal), when the wind shifted from southeast to east and the temperature dropped 15 degrees, today, the east wind shifted to south, blowing out directly at us in left field by game's end, and the temperature on the gauge in my car when I got there after the game read "75 degrees" -- I hadn't thought it was that warm, but we'll take a bonus nice day anytime in mid-April.

Reversed also were the fortunes of Rich Hill, who hadn't really pitched well (as Dave reminded me) since mid-September of last year. He started out with yet another walk, but picked Nate McLouth off first base, and despite giving up a run to the Pirates in the second inning on two singles and a double, lookd pretty solid all afternoon. His 82-pitch outing was ended by Lou after five innings -- likely to give him a shot at a win -- and the bullpen took over.

And here is where I have my only quibble with Lou's managing this afternoon. Kevin Hart was warming up in the 5th inning, in case Hill got into more trouble, but then sat down and Jon Lieber -- who threw an inning yesterday -- came into the game. Now what's the point of that? Lieber is now probably unavailable tomorrow, and so is Carlos Marmol, who threw 43 pitches in two innings and gave up a wind-blown HR to McLouth that made the score 3-2 in the 8th. Marmol, as Dave and I agreed, isn't suited to be a two-inning pitcher; his job is going to be to pitch in the 7th, to set up for Bob Howry in the 8th... and of course, Howry may not have been available, having thrown a 14-pitch inning yesterday... which brings us back to the original question of this paragraph: why wasn't Hart in the game in the sixth? Credit where credit is due: Kerry Wood was outstanding today. Before I could even finish writing "Mientkiewicz" on my scorecard, Wood had retired him on a grounder to first.

Too many quibbles, I guess, for a game the Cubs won. Dave said, "Lou's managing this game like it's a pennant race game in September, instead of a game in mid-April", and I think he's right. There's no need to risk burning out the bullpen this early in the year. What has to happen, as I told him, is that the starters have to start going consistently deeper into games. We can't keep having these five-inning outings all the time.

Meanwhile, the offense did just enough, even without any HR on a day when the wind shifted and was blowing out from about the fourth inning on. The Cubs scored all their runs in that fourth inning, getting the first four men on base and then, with Rich Hill up ostensibly to bunt, he hit a ball that would have gone through the infield if Luis Rivas hadn't been shading toward 2B. Hill beat the DP relay throw, and then Eric Patterson hit a ball to almost the same spot -- but also beat the relay, and got an RBI as a result, when Geovany Soto scored what turned out to be the margin-of-victory run. McLouth, for his part, got into the action a little more than he might have liked; in chasing down Kosuke Fukudome's triple he got a beer thrown in his direction. Unfortunately, that's more stupid behavior by ONE bleacher fan. I trust the Pirates announcers let it go.

Reed Johnson had two more hits today and may, by default, have won the CF job. Lou likes playing the hot hand and Johnson has looked good. This was the one game in the series where Felix Pie might have started; two LHP's are going the next two days. If Pie's not going to play, they may as well send him back to Iowa and bring Matt Murton up. My feelings on this issue are well-known. Pie has talent, but we're never going to find out whether he can play or not unless he plays. (I know that sounds silly, but it's the truth.) Sitting on the bench here is pointless for him, and bringing Murton up would allow Mark DeRosa to go back to playing 2B. I don't think that Eric Patterson is any real solution to the problem -- no matter what Christina Kahrl has written at Baseball Prospectus.

However, the team is winning, so maybe I should just keep my mouth shut on the issue. This weird schedule has the Cubs playing the Pirates six of the first 18 games -- and wouldn't it be nice to sweep them again?

Some people in the section just to our left attempted to start a wave in the eighth inning. Fortunately, they failed. Earlier, I had met BCB readers coral and bobby h, who both stopped by to say hi. Nice to meet you both this afternoon.

Finally, my son Mark was off school today, so he came to the game. Running off to ballhawk during BP, he brought back two baseballs and I saw him nearly catch a third on the fly. Also, he's now 3-0 in games attended. I'm thinking I've got to get him out to more ballgames (when school's out, of course).

Click here for my scorecard (opens in new browser window)