Did you get the impression that they were severely overmatched in the Philly series with two blowout wins in either direction and an extra innings loss? I don't get the idea that they can't reasonably compete with better teams. What does that even mean? Your simplifying my point a bit. Until recently, the Cubs have been basically a .500 team, give or take a few games. They have looked decent at times, and then very bad at others. They need to build on this streak and get healthy. I've seen more bad than good so far to this point to get my hopes up too high. Fair enough. If you want this team to be a dominant 100 win team that steamrolls through the regular season, then that's not really going to happen this year, obviously. A championship, though, is still within reach.