BCB Quiz: What do you see in the picture?

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.

That was great theater, wasn't it?

Before a near-sellout of 39,945 on a night that was, by the end, starting to get cold, the Cubs provided 9th and 10th inning dramatics that had Wrigley Field rocking as I have never heard it for a regular season game this early in the year, and Alfonso Soriano shut up his critics (for a day, at least) by poking a single into left field, scoring Mike Fontenot with the winning run in an excruciatingly exciting 2-1 Cubs win over the Dodgers, completing the Cubs' fourth three-game sweep at home this season, moving their home record to a spectacular 22-8, pushing them 11 games over .500 for the first time since the last day of the ill-fated 2004 season, and... remarkably:

After 118 seasons of competition between the Cubs and the Dodgers, their all-time series is now dead-even: 1,010 wins for each team. I thought about this and these two franchises have traded periods of dominance. When the Cubs were a great team in the early years of the 20th Century, the Dodgers were horrid. When the Dodgers were winning ten pennants in the 20 years from 1947-66, the Cubs were awful.

But now: 2,020 games split down the middle. History is turning around.

Remind me again why the Cubs need another starting pitcher? They allowed an admittedly hurting LA "offense" three runs in this series, and the only one Carlos Zambrano allowed last night was on a bases-loaded walk after he had helped load the bases by hitting Matt Kemp. Z admitted in his postgame comments that he knew he didn't have his best stuff or command; he walked four, tying his season high, and had to get, essentially, five outs in that tense eighth inning because his defense deserted him (Mark DeRosa let a ball go off his glove which was ruled a hit, and Ryan Theriot made a throwing error, both of which could have been outs). Z threw an alarmingly high total of 130 pitches -- something we haven't seen since the Baker era. However, Lou said in his own postgame remarks that he'll keep Z on a short leash in his next start and also, he left Z in to finish the 8th partly because of the fans:

"I let the fans make that decision," he said of the applause that resulted when he left Zambrano in. "I told [Dodger third base coach] Larry Bowa 'I know how to make decisions to please the fans.'"

He was kidding. I think.

Anyway, other than the one inning where the Dodgers scored, Z was pretty solid, as were Derek Lowe and Jonathan Broxton, who kept the Cubs off the board through eight. The Cubs hit Lowe pretty hard, but everything was right at people. Broxton was throwing gas; he struck out Reed Johnson, a totally overmatched Micah Hoffpauir, and Alfonso Soriano. And usually, when Takashi Saito enters, that's it. But Saito was off last night, and thank the newly-patient Cubs for drawing two walks, Ryan Theriot and Aramis Ramirez, sandwiched around a Derrek Lee flyout. That's only the fourth time in 156 career appearances that Saito has walked two batters in one inning.

Big credit to Kosuke Fukudome for his hustle in beating out an infield grounder to load the bases; Geovany Soto tied the game with a sac fly, and then the Cubs bullpen held on -- Bob Howry, who's getting better, it seems, with each game he throws, pitched an uneventful 10th, setting up the last of the 10th (with half the crowd having left after the 9th, but those of us who remained were just as loud as those you heard at home in the bottom of the 9th).

Jim Edmonds was nowhere to be seen -- not starting against Lowe, nor pinch-hitting in the 10th; we're all happy with the Mike Fontenot double that started the winning rally, but just one day after Lou said this of Edmonds:

"Every time a right-hander has pitched, we've had him in the lineup," Piniella said of Edmonds, whom the Cubs acquired after he was released by San Diego on May 9.

Well, not last night against the RHP Lowe, he didn't start. Lou also said in that article:

"I don't have time limits," Piniella said about Edmonds. "The only problem I have here as a manager is I have a young man named Hoffpauir, and I want to see what he can do, so it creates a little bit of a situation for me as a manager.

"Outside of that, there's no timetable on anything," Piniella said. "[Hoffpauir] has had two good springs for us, and he's hit the ball well. We'd like to have a little clarification also."

As I wrote above, Hoffpauir looked totally lost against Jonathan Broxton. So where does this leave Edmonds? He'll sit tonight, obviously, against LHP Jeff Francis. After that... who knows?

We have seen this Cub team win by scoring buckets of runs; coming back from big deficits; and coming back now two days in a row from 1-0 deficits, late, with timely hitting and plate discipline. Yes, this is the Cubs I'm talking about. It feels diffent. It IS different. The Cubs have the best record in the major leagues this morning, tied once again with the Rays. Onward. And maybe the Cubs should invite ESPN more often. We're showing those East Coast guys that there's exciting baseball played outside of NYC and Boston.

Luis Maza hits into a DP in the first inning (Juan Pierre slides into 2nd)

Z's strikeout of Matt Kemp on a nasty backdoor slider in the 8th

Aramis Ramirez draws the Cubs' second walk of the 9th inning

Bob Howry strikes out James Loney to end the top of the 10th

Celebrate!

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

The Cubs started hitting almost the very second that the Pirates' Zach Duke took the mound and didn't stop all night, registering nineteen hits, scoring in seven of the nine innings and blowing out the Pirates 12-3 in a game that wasn't even that close. The Cubs now lead the major leagues in OBA and runs (runs by a wide margin, 279-267 over the 2nd-ranked Red Sox and Rangers), and are second in walks and OPS.

Yes, this is the Cubs we're talking about. You are not dreaming. This is really happening.

Everyone hit, and I mean literally everyone, with the exception of Geovany Soto, who went 0-for-4. (Hey, at least he picked a day when everyone else hit to have a bad day.) Who can we single out as a hitting hero of the night, when there were so many? Reed Johnson put the game out of reach with his three-run HR in the fifth, which made a 5-0 game into an 8-0 game. Johnson also had two doubles and totalled four RBI. Aramis Ramirez had three hits and scored three runs. Derrek Lee had two RBI.

It's clear that the injury that Alfonso Soriano suffered in April against the Reds wasn't totally healed when he came back, and still isn't totally healed. It may have been made worse during his first at-bat; you could clearly see him rounding first and hurting as he came into second base, and he left the game early -- I assume the club will say that was "as a precaution", but it would not surprise me to see Soriano have another DL stint. Micah Hoffpauir replaced him in LF, making one defensive play without incident. Speaking of players playing out of position, Mark DeRosa started in RF last night. I know he's played there before (and he had two hits and three RBI), but he misplayed one ball -- the one that hit high off the wall. Nate McLouth wound up on third. DeRosa went up high to try to catch the ball, but there's no way he could have; what he should have done, once he realized the ball was over his head, was to pull up and wait for the bounce. It didn't matter, as the runs would have scored anyway, and McLouth never did -- but this is what you'd see a lot of if Hoffpauir were to play RF on a regular basis.

So please, Lou. Don't. The team's winning the way things are. It ain't broke. Don't fix it.

Carlos Zambrano was outstanding last night. In addition to throwing seven strong innings, walking only one and allowing only the two runs that scored on McLouth's triple, he had a career-high four hits, driving in two runs and scoring once and raising his season batting average to .343. The best thing about Z's hitting last night was that he didn't try to smash home runs into the Allegheny River beyond the RF wall; instead, he had quality AB and took good swings and his four singles were quite productive. (It was also very smart of Z to run way out of the way in the fifth when Soriano hit into a double play.) Obviously, also, there's nothing wrong physically with Z, and he notes his changed pitching style this year as one of the reasons for his great start:

Zambrano walked one batter, and has cut down the number of free passes.

"The whole year, the key has been to throw strikes, first-pitch strikes, and be able to throw good pitches when I'm in trouble," Zambrano said. "That's the key all year long.

"When I feel good, I can challenge the hitter and I can throw my pitches for strikes and be ahead in the count," he said. "I'm not a machine, and sometimes I don't feel good and have to deal with neck pain or something, or my leg doesn't feel good that day, or I'm opening up too soon. I try to do the best to compete and do my job."

A-freakin-men, Z. Keep up the great work. Incidentally, believe it or not, that was the first four-hit game by a Cubs pitcher in almost 44 years -- since July 23, 1964, when a 37-year-old Lew Burdette had two singles, a triple and a HR in leading the Cubs to a 13-4 blowout of the Giants in San Francisco.

Jose Ascanio allowed his first run as a Cub, but still threw a decent inning, and Kerry Wood, who hadn't pitched since Sunday, had an efficient (10 pitches, 9 strikes) 9th inning, so he should be available today. The rest of the bullpen got another day off, good news for pitchers who have teetered on the edge of overuse this year.

Some of you who were there can probably tell me better, but it seemed as if it were a hugely pro-Cub crowd last night; the Pirates are 29th in MLB attendance, averaging only 15,583 before last night. The 32,656 announced last night more than doubled that, and I'd expect that to continue all weekend.

So enjoy. After 48 games the Cubs have still not lost more than two in a row this season, the mark of a team that can pick up and start winning again even after a couple of tough defeats like the last two in Houston. Yes, the schedule so far this year has been ridiculous, but I, for one, am going to miss the Pirates and their McDonald's worker jerseys after this weekend.

Len Kasper said it best, right after Hunter Pence hit the grand slam that held up for Houston's 4-2 win over the Cubs last night. It wasn't "one bad pitch", as is often said when an opposing player hits a key home run.

In the case of last night's game, it was the eight pitches out of the strike zone that Ryan Dempster threw in the Houston fourth inning after Miguel Tejada had led off the inning with a double.

They were the only two walks Dempster issued -- not terrible for a six-inning outing -- but that was the difference in the game, all six runs scoring as the result of home runs; Aramis Ramirez had hit a ball way up on the outfield facing to give the Cubs a two-run lead in the top of the fourth inning. This has been Dempster's problem throughout his career -- too many walks.

The Cubs didn't leave too many men on base last night -- only seven -- but did leave RISP in the 5th, 7th and 9th, and the 7th was the inning that they should have gotten to Chris Sampson and Doug Brocail, who relieved Sampson, because in that inning there were two singles and a walk. Unfortunately, in between the two singles, Jim Edmonds hit into a double play, and then after Micah Hoffpauir reached base for the first time in his brief ML career by drawing a walk, Brocail was summoned and he struck out Alfonso Soriano to end the inning. Edmonds is now 2-for-12 as a Cub with a walk, two strikeouts, and one DP ball. He'll have to do better than this to justify the move.

Funny game, baseball. Soriano and Lance Berkman came into this series as the two hottest hitters in the game. They are a combined 1-for-15 in this series so far.

Good news: Jose Ascanio, just recalled, made his Cubs debut, and despite walking two Astros, managed to get through two innings without allowing any runs. The Astros out-walked the Cubs four to two last night, and that, essentially, was that. I have confidence that Sean Gallagher, who has thrown well in both his starts so far, can beat Houston and Shawn Chacon (who has the unusual distinction of making nine starts this year so far, all no-decisions) and win the series tonight.

More good news: Derrek Lee had three more hits last night and seems to be coming out of his slump. There was some talk about starting Hoffpauir tonight to give D-Lee two days off in a row, but maybe now he doesn't need that.

Finally, the controversy over Geovany Soto's HR Monday night (was it really officially "outside" the park based on ground rules) prompted a major meeting of MLB umpiring and other officials early Tuesday:

In response to a somewhat controversial call made during Monday's series opener between the Cubs and Astros, officials reworked one of the yellow lines that indicates a home run, located just to the right of the "bmcsoftware" sign above the visitors' bullpen in left-center.

Bob Watson, MLB vice president rules and on-field operations, called it a more "umpire-friendly" line, which will better differentiate between a home run and a ball in play.

A yellow wood board that served as a home run indicator was removed, and in its place is a simple yellow painted line, drawn on the inside part of the wall.

via chicago.cubs.mlb.com

The Cubs maintained their two-game division lead when the Cardinals lost late last night in San Diego. That's really all there is to say -- sometimes, you just get beat. Until later today.

That's how this feels, doesn't it? The wins are starting to get routine... I know, I know, we shouldn't take anything for granted. But this team is winning games in a fashion we haven't seen since 1984, or maybe 1969, or maybe even in a lifetime that few of us have seen, the pre-1945 era when the Cubs actually won pennants every few years.

SHHHH! I know, it's early. Yesterday's 7-2 Cub win over the Astros, their ninth in their last 11 games, was the mark of what you see when a good team gets on a roll.

There, I said it: the Cubs are a good team. Maybe the best team in the league, though I do know there are still holes to be filled. Once again, different heroes showed up last night. Alfonso Soriano, so hot last week, cooled off by going 0-for-4 (with a walk, one of three that put the team total at 204). No matter. Geovany Soto decided to take matters into his own hands by hitting a ball to the far reaches of the Juice Box that nearly everyone except the umpires saw hit to the right of the yellow line -- that would have made it a home run by rule. The umpires, instead, said it was in play, and that made things more exciting, because the not-fleet Soto (who has zero SB attempts and only one triple in his ML career) flew around the bases for a three-run, inside-the-park HR.

We learned last night that it has been nearly 49 years since a Cub catcher last hit an inside-the-park HR. Cal Neeman, a not-very-good backup C (he hit only .162 that year), was the hitter, and what you didn't hear about that June 17, 1959 blast is that it broke a 2-2 tie in the 8th inning and won the game for the Cubs. See the play-by-play at the above link.

Jim Edmonds made one of his patented, back-to-the-plate, turn-my-shoulders-around, do-the-hokey-pokey catches in CF on that ridiculous hill in Houston. It made the highlight reels, but what wasn't said at the time is that Felix Pie would have made that catch in a routine manner, because Pie would have been playing deeper to begin with and because Pie is faster than Edmonds. It's been said that Edmonds deliberately plays shallow so he can make these catches look harder than they really are, and I think there's something to that. In any case, he did make the play and also had a single in five at-bats, which isn't going to make anyone forget that Pie could probably do everything Edmonds has done so far in a Cub uniform.

Ted Lilly wasn't great last night, but sharp enough, and when Michael Wuertz got hit hard by the only two batters he faced, Lou called on Carlos Marmol again. What we need is to get larger leads early, so that Marmol, who has now thrown in 23 of the first 45 games, doesn't have his arm fall off by the beginning of September. He's going to be just as needed in October (he said, optimistically) as he is now.

But these are quibbles. I shouldn't complain too much, because these Cubs seem to have a quiet confidence about going out there every day to win, and knowing that if one player goes cold (Derrek Lee, who has hit only .171 so far this month, may get a day off on Wednesday), someone else will pick up the slack. And of that, championship teams can be made. A nod also to Aramis Ramirez, who hit his first home run since April 23, to put the game out of reach in the ninth inning, and also to Bob Howry, who threw probably his best inning of the year so far to finish up. That's important because if Howry, Marmol and Kerry Wood are all throwing well, you can probably shut down virtually every game where the Cubs have the lead after six.

Notes: Chad Fox went on the DL with "ulnar neuritis" (fancy words for "sore elbow"), and Jose Ascanio was recalled from Iowa. Ascanio will wear uniform #58, which was last worn by Geovany Soto. May Ascanio have as much success as Soto has. Trivia: there have been only three other players: Ben Van Ryn (1998), Richard Barker (1999), and Mike Mahoney (2000,2002), and one coach (Fred Martin, 1961-1965), to ever wear #58. (Nod to BCB reader kaseyi and his all-time Cub uniform number page for the info.)

Cub streaks so far this year:

Lost 3 of first 4
Won 14 of next 17
Lost 9 of next 13
Won 9 of next 11

Finally, to differentiate the game recaps from game threads and other main-page posts, I am today starting, and will continue, to put the final score of the game in the recap title.