Are the Cubs for real?

When you have all of the pieces in place, all you need is time. You have to have pitchers and hitters to win in baseball - I don't care who you have as manager. This team is a polar opposite of the one Dusty had last year. I am so glad Prior and Wood have nothing to do with the current team. Cut those jokers and flush all that bad karma down the drain! Cubs are for real, especially in that division.

You better believe they are for real. And Marquis, what a surprise. I knew the lineup was going to be able to score runs. I wasn't sure myself if they were real until the pitching started to come around. If the pitching keeps coming around (I can't say they have a solid rotation just yet) they are golden. And every National League team has to play every other National League team over the course of the season so if the schedule is against weak teams now the tough ones will come soon enough. A weak division will only get you into the playoffs so may as well bone up on anyone they play now.

One month ago I would have never agreed with Keith about Prior and Wood, I was wanting the two of them back badly. However I have done a 180 on that one at this point. I think it is fate that Prior and Wood are not having an effect right now. I don't think the Cubs need a "if we only had so and so" excuse factor.

Roman, I am looking forward to the Philly and NY series, but I will see you in Wrigley for the Brewers at the end of June. I predict a lot of Fox national broadcasts on Saturdays after that series (at least I hope so mlb.com is blacked out on Saturdays for now mostly).

Right now I am just happy I am 1/2 game in front an annual bet I have with one of my Sow Side friends on who will finish with the best record, to say the least I have been taking a beating the last few years.

GO CUBS

The entire month of May is really important in terms of schedule, as the Cubs and Brewers have essentially the same schedule in terms of opponents. How both teams fare against strong teams in the Phillies, Mets, Dodgers, Padres, and White Sox (or Twins if you're the Brewers) will be critical.

The Padres humiliated the Cubs last year and they never recovered from that thrashing. The Brewers are solid team, though I have a hard time imagining they'll collectively continue to hit as torridly as they are right now. And like I said before, it's a long season -- a lot can happen.

I just wish Lou would go younger in the Cubs' outfield. Why does he continue to stick with Jacque Jones who's been so shameful in the clutch that he couldn't do any worse if he just went up to the plate and used his thumbs instead of a bat? 0 for 10 in two games with how many runners stranded?

Lou was looking forward when he built a team without Wood and Prior; Theriot's earned playing time and has gotten it. I'd like that same foresight in the outfield. Jones, Floyd...these guys are relics of old Cub thinking. Let's get more athletic, let players who are hungry get some time out there.

Check that 1/2 game Roman Cubs just lost. I must have jinxed them or the 3 DPs in the first 4 innings might have done it too. Hats off to Maholm.

When is Zambrano going to stop fooling around? :P

GO CUBS

We will find out if the Cubs are for real this year after this road trip. They play considerably better teams than they have so far this year and if they can split or better on this trip then I will be convinced. I have been a Cub fan for 55 years and I never give uo hope. I have simply lowered my expectations over the years to not be quite as disappointed.

I think it's just warm enough where they will play better and once it's too hot and then too cold they will revert back to the Cubbies we've seen all along. They made me sick with that "it's too cold to play baseball" crap. The other team was playing in the same weather and were displaced by visiting the confines worse than the Cubbies were. Accepting excuses is as dumb as making excuses.

I don't want to come off negative, but this is the month of May. If the Cubbies are still kicking butt in late July and early September that is when I will start raising my hopes. Earnestly, I really prefer to state the month of September only, but being a Chicagoan, I will give the Cubbies extra breathing room.

Not apologetic Cub Fans but GO CHICAGO WHITE SOX!!

Just in case one of the Sox Bozos want to cry about the '300 million' stuff....it never occured to me that your lack of intelligence has left you thinking that the cubs were paying that amount this year. The bloated Sox have a higher payroll,and of course we have much lower expectations from them. Here is a sample of the top payrolls of 2007
Team                   Payroll    Average
N.Y. Yankees        $195,229,045 $6,732,036
Boston               143,526,214  5,125,936
New York Mets        117,915,819  3,930,527
Chicago White Sox    109,680,167  4,218,468
Los Angeles Angels   109,251,333  3,641,711
Los Angeles Dodgers  108,704,524  3,748,432
Seattle              106,516,833  3,945,068
Chicago Cubs          99,937,000  3,701,370

Why are you asking if the Cubs are for real anyway? Win or lose....They are Chicago's REAL baseball team (no, I am not trying to slight the Brewers-even though they are in Milwaukee and more people from Chicago travel there than to U.S. Celluar.)

Sure the Cubs look decent right now, but the feeling here is all too familiar. The Cubs will get hot for a while or get off to a nice start, get their fans excited, and then proceed to deliver their annual June/July collapse. So it feels like any early winning they do is just a preparation for the inevitable letdown. Sometimes the letdown happens later than normal, but it always comes, and the later it is the more dramatic it is (2003).

So for that reason I can't and won't buy into Cub baseball in May. If they're still playing fine baseball consistently in mid-July, and if their rotation continues to be as good as it's been, that's another story entirely. If they're playing like this in August and render the acronym Completely Useless By September null and void, that's even better. But right now? No. These are the Cubs. Too many reasons to be pessimistic right now, and we've awarded the Cubs too many pennants in May to begin with. Ask me again in a couple of months.

Ok stuckinwisconsin who was talking about the Sox besides Douglas who only said "Go Chicago White Sox?" Why do you do this all the time? But since you brought it up, payroll is irrelevant right now. The Sox have a lot of money tied up in starting pitching and in guys like Konerko and Thome and have for a couple of years now, the Cubs only recently went on a massive spending spree. I hate to give Hendry credit for anything considering he is the Matt Millen of baseball, but it looks like he really got it right with his free-agent pitching signings. Even if he overpaid... but that's what quality pitching costs right now anyway. After all the Sox gave 10 mil a year to Vasquez.

But... ok look let me put things in perspective. The Cubs are playing .500 ball right now in arguably the worst division in major league baseball and their fans are ecstatic and talking about playoffs and pennants. The Sox are one game over .500 in arguably the best division and their fans are flipping out and talking about fire sales.

With that said, I'm sorry to everyone else who wanted to talk about the CUBS and not the SOX but I had to address that although I doubt it does any good.

we all new you Bozos would come here sooner or later because of the lack of interest in the sox, so I took pre-emptive measures. Derek Lee and Aramis are not 'recent',and I would take them as well as any other team would overe greedy Crede and the current fat white poster child Thome(it goes waaaaaaay back Kittle,Luzinski...etc..-almost as embarrasing as the Bulls White quota centers..Corzine,Poquette,Wennington...etc.).As Uusual...your lack of knowledge embaraases not only yourself, but also WhiteSox fans who submissively know their place. HAHAHAHAHAAHAHHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA we love it!

Roman responds: We all "new"???

I started to type a response but I realized it's not worth my, Roman's, or anyone else reading this blog's time. Roman made a blog topic about the Cubs. So I along with everyone else am making posts about the Cubs.

How about instead of trying to put down my "baseball knowledge" or reaching for insults against the Sox which I won't be baited by, most of which are either made up or completely false, you worry about whether the Cubs still look like a MLB team after July 1 unlike in the past and whether they will make a habit of losing series at Wrigley against juggernauts like the Pirates. Worry about whether Zambrano is going to stop pitching like trash, whether DeRosa doesn't set a record for runners left on base. That's what this blog is about isn't it?

Another day, another loss for the hapless, underacheiving millionaires masquerading as a major league baseball team. After another display of power, speed and timely hitting (lol) the Cubs were able to preserve another loss after recently losing 2 out of 3 to a team that is almost as inept as they are....the Pittsburgh Pirates. With each passing day the Cubs' magic number to become eliminated from a possible World Series title, for the 99th consecutive year, is shrinking. Pat Burrell, who was hitting about .240 before the Cubs came to town, tripled his season home run total by hitting 2 tonight and got 3 hits off a a pitching staff that is battling for the league lead in hitting the other teams bats. Niel Cotts should be the poster boy for Ex-Lax because the other teams continue to knock the bleep out of him and Carlos "CY Young wannabe" Zambrano needs to learn you don't do your talkin' 'til the dealin' is done. But the Cubs do serve a purpose.......through dedication and a real team effort they have been responsible for putting more opposing team pitchers and hitters in the Hall of Fame than any other franchise. Make your tee times now, Cubs fans, because the Cubs will be flocking to local area golf courses right after game 162.

Yesterday I saw in person the Cubs blow the game to the scrub Mets team in the bottom of the ninth. They are well underway of being not for real. They should've won 3 out of 4 from the Mets. Wait till next year. They don't have what it takes.

hmm inept huh? wow. Considering 75% of the opening day roster is different than the beginning of the '06 season, and at least 25% of it is completely brand new...including the manager, and almost the entire coaching staff...I would expect the team to get off to a slow start. But get this...despite the early bullpen struggles, and the offensive shortcomings, all but 8 of the Cubs losses have been by 2 runs or fewer...and a good percentage of that is as a direct result of the bullpen. The difference between an average team and a good team that just isn't running on all cylinders yet are defined by the numbers. On that note we look at batting average (2nd in NL), RBIs (6th), Runs (5th)...and then start looking at the pitching: ERA (5th in NL) and Runs given up (3rd). and in all cases except for the batting average and the runs given up, the Cubs are only 2nd to the Brewers in the NL Central. Considering that ERA includes the bullpen...that's not a bad position to be in. Regarding the bullpen troubles though...don't think the Cubs have to wait around for them to pitch to their potential...they have plenty of talented kids waiting in the wings...a good deal of them we saw last season, and improving greatly since then. As a parting note, I'd like to say one last thing regarding that pirates series. What's worse, losing 2 out of three to a 4th place team by a combined score of 8-10 or winning 2 out of three against a team that has grown quite comfortable in the AL Central cellar by a combined score of 8-16? Oh and by the way...continuing to go with the assumption that you're a White Sox fan, maybe someone should tell your guys that they'll have a better chance at winning a few more games if they actually hit the ball...unless of course the new pitching strategy is to just throw no-hitters all the time ;)

Sean K...........allow me a moment to poke some holes in your aimless ramblings.........In actuality, no, I am not a White Sox fan and only tolerate their existence because the word Chicago precedes the words White Sox. Regarding the numbers you so eloquently pointed out.....add them all up and multiply by 2 and the equation comes out the same......there is no team in major sports history with a longer winless drought than the Chicago Cubs. Even the Chicago based major sports franchises, the Bulls, Bears, White Sox and Blackhawks (yes, that hapless Wirtz owned franchise) have all won World Titles since the Cubs last won one. Talented kids, Sean? Where are they? Save for Theriot, tell me which players developed by the Cubs in their system are helping them right now? The only accomplishment the Cubs' young pitching was able to make last season was to earn the nickname "The Pinatas" because they were oonsistently beaten around. So if that young pitching has "improved greatly" it's only because the room on the downside was all taken. Only Ted Lilly is currently throwing the ball well as a starter (Jason Marquis and Rich Hill have been very hitable lately), Carlos "Mr Cy Young" Zambrano is sporting an era of 5.61 as of this writing (5/20/07) and the bullpen has imploded more times than I care to count. Don't show me numbers, Sean.....show me more wins than losses, show me a tean that plays with intensity and a desire to win, show me a team that plays fundamentally sound baseball (good base running seems to be a foreign concept to the Cubs), show me a team that has the character to come from behind late in the game and show me a team that wins the games they are leading after 7 innings instead of finding a way to blow the majority of those leads. Then it just may be possible to put the words "credibility" and "Chicago Cubs" in the same sentence.

What do you think of the Cubs now? They beat a good Sox team. They came back in all 3 games. They have a good team and are for real in that division.

Roman responds: I love the "in that division" qualifier.

i have been a cubs fan for 39 years now and they are no closer to winning than ever. poor lou, he didn't know what he was getting into. this team is not cursed, they just have bumbling management. this 2007 team has been put together like a fantasy team. every hitter except theriot and murton hits in negative counts, they swing at first pitches almost every at bat. mark derosa, jacque jones are pathetic. alfonso soriano has been a major disappointment, i can see why nobody else went after him, he is a terrible feast or famine player who swings at pitches a foot off the plate. the cubs are right on track to be done by memorial day. short summer wasn't it?

Roman responds: And they don't have the excuse of injuries to Prior or Wood this year because neither pitcher was being counted on to contribute.