April Impressions

[Soul]

We have a bad team on our hands.

Wrong. We have a good team that's playing bad right now. There's a difference. A bad team would stay bad; a good team hopefully won't.

 

Hopefully.

 

But sometimes a good team on paper starts off bad and then just continues to be bad. Especially when gimpy/injured players are involved.

[NCCubFan]

My impression is that one of the Cubs' biggest problems is nagging injuries. They aren't bad enough for them to DL guys, but they are just bad enough to seriously limit the individual player's ability to perform well.

It's too bad there isn't a 7-day DL like there is in the minors. If there were I think Aram and Bradley would have been on it and the bench would have been at full strength.

[Rusch33]

My saving grace is that the Brewers were like 12 games out this time last year, and they clawed their way to the top, or at least close enough to it and I feel that were better than the Brewers were this time last year and the competition, aside from the Cardinals isnt.

 

Huh?

 

April 30th, 2008

 

Chicago       17   10   .630   ---
St. Louis     18   11   .621   ---
Milwaukee     15   12   .556   2.0
Houston       13   16   .448   5.0
Cincinnati    12   17   .414   6.0
Pittsburgh    11   16   .407   6.0

 

 

----

Cubs 22nd game into the season last year (April 24th, 2008)

 

Chicago       15    7   .682   ---
St. Louis     14    9   .609   1.5
Milwaukee     13    9   .591   2.0
Houston       11   12   .478   4.5
Pittsburgh     9   13   .409   6.0
Cincinnati     9   14   .391   6.5

[Guest]

My saving grace is that the Brewers were like 12 games out this time last year, and they clawed their way to the top, or at least close enough to it and I feel that were better than the Brewers were this time last year and the competition, aside from the Cardinals isnt.

 

In 2007, the Cubs were 5.5 out after the games on May 1 and were 11-14. They were also 8.5 games out on June 23.

 

That team came back to win the division. Yes, I realize that 84 games isn't likely to win the NL Central this year but at the same time, this Cubs team has been hampered by injuries and is a much better team overall than the one fielded in 2007 (Theriot had a .672 OPS, Barrett had a .734 and Jacque had a .735). The Cardinals are also on pace to win 115 games which also isn't going to happen.