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

Continue reading this post »

After enduring a spring that Mike described to me last night as "First cold rain, then hot rain", the sun came out, puffy clouds dotted the sky, a healthy breeze wafted warm air over Chicago and Wrigley Field yesterday, and the Cubs just kept on rolling with a 10-5 win over the Braves, their ninth consecutive home victory dating back to May 18.

The Cubs got solid pitching, timely hitting and outstanding defense. Really, what more can any of us ask for?

It didn't start that way. Ted Lilly had a shaky first inning, walking Yunel Escobar to lead off the game. After a single and two strikeouts, Lilly gave up a three-run homer.

To Greg Norton. Who has been around so long that one of his teammates in his first September callup was Harold Baines. Who was hitting .176 at the time. Uh-oh. This didn't feel very good. But you know what? After Lilly gave up a triple to Omar Infante, the guy who was a Cub for about five minutes last winter, in the second inning, he retired the next 11 Braves in a row and left to a standing ovation in the 7th, after the Cubs had hacked away at Tom Glavine and taken a lead (we wondered why Glavine was yanked after three innings; turns out he's got elbow trouble, which, combined with the loss of John Smoltz, may end any Atlanta playoff hopes). Lilly wound up allowing only four hits, walked three and struck out eight, and lowered his ERA to where you can almost see it (5.13).

A lot of this was thanks to excellent defense -- Lilly ought to buy Reed Johnson drinks or dinner or both after Johnson made several good-to-spectacular catches of balls Braves hitters launched into deep center field (he might have caught Infante's triple, too, had the entire OF not been playing so shallow). Aramis Ramirez made a couple of slick fielding plays, too, including on the DP grounder that, at last, ended the game.

When Lilly got into trouble, Carlos Marmol came in and ended the threat in three pitches, getting Escobar to line right at Ryan Theriot -- and that worried us in the LF corner, because we figured Lou was going to leave Marmol out for another thirty-pitch, inning-plus appearance. It was a pleasant surprise, then, to see Bob Howry trot out for the 8th. Pleasant, that is, until Howry gave up hard line drive after hard line drive, and Scott Eyre had to be summoned with the score 6-5. Eyre's strikeout of Gregor Blanco with the tying run on 2nd was the biggest out of the game.

Geovany Soto then put the game out of reach with a three-run HR into the LF basket to make the score 10-5 after the Cubs had run themselves into a couple of runs with steals off Brian McCann and a D-Lee sac fly (nice to see Lee perhaps coming out of his slump with a long HR and the RBI sac fly). This got Kerry Wood to sit down and Jon Lieber up -- and Lieber was a bit shaky, allowing two baserunners and getting Wood up again just in case, which was when Ramirez started the nicely-done DP.

Last night BCB reader Damen Jackson sat with us, snapping photos for his own website, which I'm going to link on the right sidebar later today, and he also snapped this shot at my request of the upper deck side scoreboard, one for you numerologists:

Click on photo to open a larger version in a new browser window. Photo by Damen Jackson

And that's the kind of fun you can have when you are 17 games over .500 (the last time the Cubs were more than 17 games over was in 2004), and winning games seemingly at will. Ted Lilly perhaps expresses it best:

"You just feel like you’re never out of it. We’re tough and we’ve had a lot of come-from-behind wins this year," Lilly said.

Yes, indeed. If you like, you can also credit my son Mark, who is now out of school and joined us last night. He has yet to see the Cubs lose this season -- 7-0. He'll be back in the bleachers during the White Sox series. I also met BCB reader buckmulligan last night -- thanks for stopping by -- and wanted to let you know that Wrigley Field concessionaires have responded to the tomato/salmonella health scare by removing all tomato pieces from the condiment stands (they were also gone from Murphy's, where I stopped to get a cheeseburger before the game).

Finally, some photos from David from last night:

One of Reed Johnson's fine defensive plays, this one on Brian McCann's drive in the 7th

Kosuke Fukudome steals 2nd in the 7th

Alfonso Soriano catches Mark Teixeira's fly ball in the 8th

Geovany Soto's HR swing in the 8th

Cubs outfielders celebrating the win

W flags in the LF bleachers

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

Before I say anything about last night's 3-1 Cubs win over the Dodgers, I have a question.

Was there some basketball game on TV last night?

I swear, if I had seen one more split screen or one more update on the NBA finals, I was about to throw something at the TV screen. Talk about shameless promotion. Don't these people realize that if people wanted to watch the basketball game, they'd probably already have switched channels to do that?

And don't even get me started about the bleatings of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. I was trying to keep track of all the mistakes and platitudes put on the air by Morgan and Miller, but I lost count, there were so many (I am SO sick of hearing Miller do the "politically correct" pronunciation of foreign players' names -- I mean, really, "Chaaaahn Ho Park"?).

Having gotten that out of the way -- what a fine, fine performance by our favorite team last night. Apart from Geovany Soto's throwing error on Juan Pierre's first-inning steal, which allowed Pierre to go to third and score on an infield out, the Cubs were nearly flawless in front of the national audience. Jason Marquis -- see, I knew he had this kind of talent, as Mark DeRosa said:

"I think sometimes he becomes his own worst enemy," DeRosa said. "He sometimes doesn't realize how great his stuff is. When he's on, he's tough to hit. He has a good sinker, he had good command of his slider and his split. He's a good pitcher. He's been a good pitcher in this league."

Exactly. Marquis threw strikes last night and had terrific movement on his pitches. If he hadn't run into trouble in the 7th inning, Lou might have let him finish, as he had thrown only 89 pitches when he was removed, but taking him out in favor of Carlos Marmol was the right thing to do. (Incidentally, the last Cub CG thrown in a victory was by... Marquis, when he shut out the Pirates 1-0 on May 9, 2007. The Cubs have had one CG since then, by Carlos Zambrano in a 1-0 loss to San Diego on June 16, 2007, the day Chris Young and Derrek Lee had their brawl.) Marquis' 6.1 innings without allowing an earned run dropped his ERA by almost half a point, from 5.02 to 4.54.

More outstanding play: Marmol had his nasty slider working last night, though he went to 3-2 counts too often for my tastes (and Lou's, too), throwing 36 pitches (good thing the Cubs have today off), and he and Derrek Lee combined on a slick fielding play to end the last real Dodger threat in that 7th inning.

And then Kerry Wood came in and slammed the door -- he seems more comfortable in the closer's role with every appearance, having saved 18 games, struck out 40 in 34.2 innings, allowed only one HR (to the Pirates' Jason Bay on April 9, in a game the Cubs won anyway) and walked only seven. (Wood's hit almost as many batters -- six -- as he has walked, though only one in his last nine appearances since that disastrous HB in Pittsburgh led to a loss -- in those nine games he has thrown 8.2 innings, allowed five hits and two walks, struck out 15, allowed no runs and registered eight saves.)

Even more outstanding play: hitting hero of the night was DeRosa, who homered (yet another HR that landed just beyond the Dodger Stadium wall that didn't seem to be hit that hard at first), singled in the second run and scored the third on an Aramis Ramirez double. All of this was off Brad Penny... who appears, to be charitable, way out of shape. He's a big man, yes... and I don't really want to be politically incorrect and say he's "fat"... well, yes I do. Penny looked fat last night, and maybe that's why he's been off to such a bad start.

It was a nearly flawless performance that ended the Cubs' first winning road trip of the year. The 14-16 road record the Cubs sport doesn't look that good -- until you look at everyone else's road record. Only three teams in all of baseball -- the Cardinals (17-14), the Phillies (18-13) and the Angels (21-12) have winning records on the road. Nineteen teams have road records worse than the Cubs'. This is unusual -- normally, the home-field advantage isn't as strong in baseball as it is in other sports, particularly the NBA (Say, was there a basketball game going on last night?), and I'm at a loss to explain why this is so. Fortunately for the Cubs, they come home for another of those goofy three-game homestands to face a team with the worst record in baseball on the road, the Braves, 7-21 away from Atlanta, and having to play for at least a game or two without their best hitter, Chipper Jones, currently hitting .420 but out with a slight tear in his right quad.

One other bit of news: Lou is considering skipping Sean Gallagher's turn, given the off day today, and starting Carlos Zambrano on Thursday; the idea is to give seven starts before the All-Star break to the top three starters (Z, Lilly and Dempster) and six to Marquis and Gallagher. Sounds good to me.

So enjoy this off day -- again BCB reader gary varsho has posted an off-day fun post to discuss our favorite bad Cubs -- and relax while the Cubs rest, still with the best record in baseball, and check out the sidebar box ranking this year's team after 64 games with the starts by other teams in Cub history. It's right up there. This is already a special season, and Kerry Wood, who has been on three Cub postseason teams, was asked how this year's team compares:

"It's different," Wood said. "It's a different feeling here. We all know we have something special. We're trying to take advantage of it."

Amen, Kerry. Keep it going. Onward.