The thing is, XZero just explained in excruciating detail why we haven't been any more or less lucky than any other decent Cubs team of the 21st century. Here's the list of every Cub I can think of who has performed better than I would've thought: Theriot Fontenot Ward Soto Marquis (to some extent) R. Hill (to some extent) Marshall Kendall Dempster Marmol And the thing is, of all of those, only the two relievers, Marquis, Hill and Theriot have gotten enough playing time, over the course of the whole season, to really have made a major statistical impact on the season. Whereas Zambrano, Jones, Soriano, Lee, Barrett, Floyd, and Eyre, to name a few, have been significantly below a) recent performance, b) career averages or c) both. In fact, as Cubs teams go, I think over the whole season, luck has had less of an impact on this one than any I remember following.