UMFan83

I'm beginning to think that the MLB has uncovered a scandal and discovered that all the Cubs on the 40 man roster were secretly being fed steroids, and this whole thing was just uncovered by the MLB and they are figuring out whether to make the Cubs forfeit their entire season

I was just about to say that I though Marquis should be on the playoff roster. This doesn't technically change my opinion, but it would be a weird time to say it.

Cubs lineup this way: Hmm, thats our regular LHP lineup except Cedeno, who as we know hits righties better than lefties, randomly hitting 2nd.

Former first round pick? Only 5 years ago. Maybe he still has some potential? Good to see that Phil Nevin's time with the Cubs officially amounted to nothing now.

But we play the Mets on Thursday

I am trying to figure out if this tells us anything about the postseason rotation So now to finish the season the rotation is: Marquis Marshall Zambrano Harden Dempster Lilly Marquis/Marshall

There was more last year I think.

Len, can you please tell the Cubs to send out the #$%#*($% emails when you see this?

Do you think people at the administrative offices of the Cubs have their emails all ready to go, but are just sitting there refreshing this thread and laughing at us all squirm as we await our Cubs playoff destinies?

Nah. The trend seems to be that the rejection emails are sent out after the success ones, whether by the Cubs for the luxury seat opportunities or other teams for the playoffs. I hate you for telling me that

I guarantee you that scalers have tons of entries in there that will skew the regular poster's odds

This is slighty different than the last few times we've been in the playoffs. Yesterday was kinda like a celebration of unimportant baseball. We had 2 of those games in 2007 and 1 in 2003, but they were all much enjoyed and used as relief for the season. Tonight it kinda sets in that we have an entire week of meaningless games to blow off. Thats 7 games and 2 cities to play meaningless baseball. I'll look forward to this game because we haven't been to Shea since May of 07, a span of 16 months, so its always fun to go to cities we don't play in a lot.

Didn't the season ticket holders get dibs on purchasing extra tickets early, or am I getting the Cubs and Bears mixed up?

Sorry to burst your bubble but you're forgetting to account for season ticket holders. And I'm sure MLB demands a couple thousand a game to hand to media, family, celebs, vips, etc. even in the NLDS

Don't knock out the Brewers. They are 1.5 back and play the Pirates and our Cubs to finish the season

I think I read that they don't

I trust our pitcher to shut down a team's offense more than I trust our offense to tee off on really good pitching. Am I alone in this theory? I'm 100% with you, I'd rather face a weaker offense than weaker pitching, because the way good teams vs. good teams usually go, its not typically very high scoring affairs I can honestly see our hitting clogged down to 3-4-5 runs a game, and I just would love to stifle the opposing bats, and not worry about having to get too many runs. What I'm saying is bring on the Dodgers. The whole team is hackers without a lot of power with the very notable exception of Manny. But we do a good job with Pujols most of the time, and I think we can do a decent job with Manny, probably with a lot of intentional unintentional walks. Actually you are 100% against me. I am in favor of facing the better offense vs. the better pitching :). Look what happened last year with Arizona

I dread the Cubs facing Manny Ramirez in any series at any time. I have a feeling in a 5 game series the Dodgers would beat us, or at least have good odds too. Their pitching is extremely underrated. I think their pitching is extremely overrated. I'm looking at some of the numbers, and apparently they benefit from huge home/road splits. Obviously with Dodger Stadium that's going to happen, but we're talking 3.00 ERA at home and 4.44 ERA on the road. I still think the Dodgers have a lot of quality pitching. They don't have a dominant number 1, but they seem to have 3 number 2's in Billingsley, Kuroda, and Lowe. They also have the wild card in Kershaw, who has had a pretty good September and a wild card because we've never faced him. Their bullpen reminds me of a slightly lesser version of ours, which is just ok until you get to the 8th and 9th inning guys. Add that to the fact that they have a solid lineup 1-6 and easily the best hitter on the two teams and its a team that can beat us in a short series. Edit: Oh and by the way, the Dodgers have the best team ERA against the Cubs this season, despite going 2-5 against us. Here are the best ERAs against the Cubs this year: 1. Dodgers 2.49 (7 games played) 2. Rays 2.67 (3 games played) 3. Phillies 3.34 (7 games played) 4. Cardinals 3.60 (15 games played) 5. Blue Jays 3.67 (3 games played)

I trust our pitcher to shut down a team's offense more than I trust our offense to tee off on really good pitching. Am I alone in this theory?

I dread the Cubs facing Manny Ramirez in any series at any time. I have a feeling in a 5 game series the Dodgers would beat us, or at least have good odds too. Their pitching is extremely underrated.

I think the rest of the way we'll probably see 5-6 regulars and 2-3 subs, with the positions changing each day. Regardless, I think its stupid that the MLB is gently reminding people about the integrity of the game. Tell me which regular is going to take these games seriously at all (especially these first few games)? Sure they will want to do good and win, but how many of them are going to be reading scouting reports and preparing like they normally do for games? Who knows, maybe I'm off. But I know that there's a little thing inside most people that causes them to focus just a little bit harder when it matters. I would think AAA callups, fighting to impress the Cubs staff would be better bets to succeed this week.

McNabb's looked meh the last 2 games, Westbrook's status I believe is up in the air as well. McNabb looked meh in Dallas? I'll take "Meh" McNabb over Orton every week... But yeah, this game scares me more than the Colts game did. I don't know what I was thinking, I got fantasy Donovan mixed up with real life Donovan in my mind. He wasn't great but he was good against Dallas. Also, McNabb didn't pick apart the Bears last year when we beat him. Again, he was decent but not good or great (21-34, 226 yards, 1 TD) yeah I'm wrong about last year...I'm thinking of him against us in the playoff a few years ago...That game was pathetic ha I'm talking about the Bears team with Jim Miller we got destroyed in the opening round by him. That McNabb is about 5 injuries away from the current McNabb. He's still a really good QB though. Just not one that's going to rush for 600 yards anymore.

Also, don't know if anyone saw this but theres a sweepstakes to win 2 tickets to an NLDS game. Signup is here: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/mlb/sweepstakes/y2008/ds/form.jsp?c_id=chc.

Seconded. I keep checking my email every 5 minutes. I have a feeling I don't get selected, but I'm really nervous regardless. If you get selected, which game will you guys pick (1,2 or 5)?