Soul

No other fans in baseball have the weight of 100 successive failures on their back. Give 'em a bit of a break. You'll see major change in the attitudes of Cub fans when the Cubs finally do break through. It's like Pavlov's dog. You keep hitting it over the head, and eventually the poor thing cringes when you try to give it a big fat piece of steak. 2008 is the big, fat, piece of steak -- but many Cub fans are still cowering, waiting for the blow.

Agreed. That September schedule is quite daunting, however. I don't know what will happen, but I feel a bit slighted by the schedule makers this year. They could very easily have taken two of those road series in September and put one in June, one in August. Yet they didn't. I'd like to know why. Doesn't seem like a very fair layout for us.

Yeah but think of how many we would be ahead if we had only not come out cold after the AS break.

Phils win.

They aren't going to walk Ankiel to get to Kennedy. 2 strikes on Ankiel, come on Lidge.

Of course. LaRussa goes for the Gibson moment. Lidge's mental issues show themselves, pitch in the dirt tying run in scoring position.

Lidge gets both Pujols and Ludwick. Mr. "Hey Mom look I'm back from the dead" Glaus is the last hope.

It's Pujols, then Ludwick against Lidge and his fragile psyche I mean slider.

oh wise one, whom are you referring to? probably the fact that the Angels are about 8 or 9 games above their Pythag., meaning they aren't as good as the record shows If you believe Pythag is the end-all be-all of baseball existence, then sure. I don't thinkthat, but when you are significantly better then what your stats suggest, eventually the luck will run out. Look at the 07 D'backs. With that said, I do believe the Cubs are the best team in baseball. Cause definsively and pitching wise, it's a flip between the Cubs and the Angels, but what separates the Cubs from the Angels is the offense. We're the 2nd best offense in baseball, whereas the Angels are something like 17-19 in baseball. That's why I thought that the Angels needed more then Tex to improve that offense. As for Boston, pre Manny Ramirez, I would agree that the Red Sox could make a strong case for best in baseball, but after Manny Ramirez trade, not so much. But again, I will agree with the notion that the Cubs---regardless of records---is the best team in baseball. jason bay was not too long ago in our division...he is a better fit in boston right now...i think that was a brilliant trade by the red sox...and people really shouldn't count them as weaker now because they don't have manny...bay is a very scary ballplayer I agree. I don't think ESPN or Boston fans have a clue what they just acquired.

oh wise one, whom are you referring to? probably the fact that the Angels are about 8 or 9 games above their Pythag., meaning they aren't as good as the record shows If you believe Pythag is the end-all be-all of baseball existence, then sure.

IIRC, Tillman is not injured, he's just dealing with some sort of very nasty personal problem back on the home front. It's good to hear Graham is stepping up a bit though. Let's face it, the chances that our starting CBs make it through the season uninjured is pretty small. How come I never hear anything about Payne -- wasn't he supposed to be some kind of hot shot before he got hurt last year? And the Williams thing -- people can say what they want, but missing 8-10 practices worth of learning & work is not a good way to start off one's career. Let's hope this back issue isn't something that turns out to be chronic. We haven't had the best luck when it comes to top OLine picks. The supposed "QB battle" is a total dud IMO since neither option is really all that attractive, and with a patchwork line and subpar receivers it's questionable whether the "winner" of the "battle" is actually winning anything of substance at all.

That was one big boy hitting one big, fat meatball right down the middle. Then they showed his Mom getting big on some of the ballpark's cuisine. All in all, a big play for the Phils ;)

Pujols up with a chance to do some damage.

So I guess Duncan's out for the year and Ankiel is hurting. To me that's pretty big news, but I guess since ESPN doesn't care about anything except Manny & Favre people who would like to know don't count (I was just on vacation with no computer access.....ESPN was pretty much it).

So far Bears TC '08 has all the excitement and intrigue of a Uwe Boll movie. Let's hope the lack of interesting stories coming from TC means they're really getting good work done and will be a better team for it.

I don't think it's too hard to make sense of losing 4 to the best team in the NL, then turning around and beating one of the worst teams in the NL a couple times in a row ('cuz after all the trades n' injuries, the Braves are now surely one of the NL's worst). I'm looking at the Crew's upcoming schedule. It's incredibly easy so the Brewers should be an auto-win machine all month long.

You sure about that, Clark? Pirates v. the Cubs: 4-9 Pirates v. everyone else in the NL: 41-40 Don't muddy the water with things like facts and rational observations. It's not fair. Even if the statement were true based on last night, 3 runs off of Jason Marquis doesnt classify as A game. It was just another case of the Cubs being baffled by a no name pitcher. ...which is what teams like the Buccos like to do to get more wins than they normally would. But whatever, I wasn't really being serious anyway.

Every time the Cubs go to add more night games people go "oh my God it's ruining the tradition of the Cubs!" ...and each time they're wrong.

The Brewers are on auto-win today with CC going against some bozo for Atlanta. Maybe the Phils can get something done against Looper, who knows. Probably not though.

Why does it seem like teams such as the Pirates wait until they play us to bring their A game, then proceed to suck against the rest of the league?

When we said you should start winning on the road more, we didn't mean you should lose at home more to balance it out Cubs. WIN DAMN YOU.

Why? Maybe Lou will actually only pitch him every other day for a while. Because they don't need him to pitch this inning, they might need him tomorrow when it's closer and they don't want Howry or Cotts pitching in a crucial situation. he can pitch back to back days... just because he hasn't done it doesn't mean he can't. Yeah, I'd just rather that back to back be in situations that matter, like potentially tomorrow and Thursday. Especially when Eyre hasn't pitched since the Cold War and we're up 7. I understand the Eyre thing, but I don't think it's necessarily the right thing to annoint Shark a big pressure pitcher after 4 innings of work. I think this was actually a very good time for Lou to get him his first road appearance -- let the kid field an easy outing, let him work on his control a bit more when it can't hurt him. Gaudin + Marmol = plenty for tomorrow's game even if Shark can't go. And I think he still could.

In all likelihood they sorted it out long ago and just don't care to share every detail of their decisions with the likes of you & me.

Shark could still pitch tomorrow if need be. And Marmol now has a day of rest.

mucus helps avoid blisters. Maybe Moises Alou shared some secrets with him? Kerry needs to learn. This is why you can't skip meetings.