Welcome to Go Cubs Go

the Chicago Cubs are in San Francisco right now for their first game of a four game set against the Giants. The Cubs currently lead 5-0. Lilly has held the Giants to four hits in six innings. Mark Derosa hit a two run home run, Murton hit a base hit to right center to score two… basically, the Cubs are winning with the small ball, the long ball, and the pitching tonight. It’s also somewhat noteworthy that the Giants are the worst home team in all of the majors, yet have a .500 record on the road.

Some promising news heard on tonight’s broadcast was that the Cubs should be getting back Reed Johnson on Thursday and Carlos Zambrano on Friday. This would probably send Ascaiano and Patterson down to make room on the roster.

Hopefully, the Cubs can hold on to this lead tonight and end their longest losing streak of the year. Go Cubs

The Cubs are finishing off the Crosstown Classic right now on the South side.  They are trailing 1-3 in the bottom of the 8th inning.  The biggest issue for the Cubs tonight has been the double play.  They have grounded into three or four double plays tonight which has been enough to kill any chances of rallying against the Sox.  The Sox used a pair of homers, one from Quentin and one from Brian Anderson to score all three runs.  With a loss tonight, the Cubs would fall to 2.5 games ahead of the Cardinals and would have their first four game losing streak of the year as they head into San Francisco for a four game set with the Giants.  Also worth mentioning is that Piniella was ejected in the second or third inning tonight for arguing a check swing call.

This sucks.  I guess I’m kind of glad though that this is the first game I’ve really watched in a while so I have only been missing crappy baseball.

And Thome homers, it’s 5-1… this game looks all but wrapped up now.

The Cubs lost the rubber game yesterday against the Orioles.  They got blown out at Wrigley in their last home game until the second week of July.  The Cubs headed into US Cellular Field this afternoon for a matinee against the White Sox.  The Cubs fell to the Sox: 10-3.  The Cubs seem to be lacking with their offense lately as they have struggled to score runs as consistently as they did in the early months.  Remarkably, the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers have been losing as well, so the Cubs have managed to maintain their lead in the Central.   The Cubs will play the Sox again tomorrow and will play them Sunday night to complete interleague play.  The Cubs will then head out to San Francisco and end their long road trip in St. Louis for an important three game set.  It will be interesting to see how the Cubs manage to play over this long road trip since they have proven to play not as well on the road (16-21).  And as of late, it seems pretty shocking that the Cubs have lost a series at Wrigley, a place where they have dominated all year!

On a related note, an interesting fact is that the Cubs have only lost three series at Wrigley.  Opening week series to the Milwaukee Brewers, Late April/May 1 series to the Milwaukee Brewers and most recently, to the Baltimore Orioles.  The Cubs are sitting at 33-10 at home.  The Cubs are sitting at 49-30; they could have been the first team in MLB to 50 wins, but it looks as if the Boston Red Sox have claimed that feat tonight.

Go Cubs.

The Chicago Cubs won 7-4 over the Baltimore Orioles tonight at Wrigley Field.  Ted Lilly improved to 8-5.  Baltimore’s original starting pitcher was scratched due to flu like symptoms.  He was replaced with Matt Albers.  Albers only lasted 1/3 of an inning as he left the game with an injury.  Cubs players took advantage of the early pitching shake-ups by scoring six runs in the first two innings.  Jay Payton, of the Orioles, hit two two-run homers to keep the Orioles alive in this game.  It wasn’t enough as the Cubs managed to put together an early lead and maintain it the rest of the night.  The Cubs improve to 33-9 at Wrigley.  They are one win away from being the first team to fifty wins this season.

Go Cubs.

Right now: The Chicago Cubs trail the Baltimore Orioles by six runs.  The score is 7-1 going into the bottom of the seventh inning.  Cubs players allowed a few unearned runs in the sixth inning due to an error by Eric Patterson.  Sean Marhsall left the game in the fifth after allowing four earned runs to score.  The Cubs have not lost at Wrigley in over a month (May 17th).  They have not trailed by this much since their comeback against the Colorado Rockies on May 30 (they trailed 9-1).

If there’s one thing about this Cubs team, they like to score in the late innings.  As we speak, they have just hit back to back singles to start the seventh inning.  Anything can happen at Wrigley…

The Cubs have their first real off day in about two weeks. The Cubs will be hosting the Baltimore Orioles starting tomorrow. Pitching matchups will be:

Tues: Guthrie (3-7; 3.51 ERA) vs. Marhsall (0-0; 4.15 ERA)

Wed: Burres (6-5; 5.24 ERA) vs. Lilly (7-5; 4.71 ERA)

Thurs: Liz (1-0; 6.27 ERA)vs. Marquis (6-3; 4.43 ERA)

Matchups seem to be favorable towards the Cubs, especially at Wrigley. Especially with St. Louis heading to Detroit where the Tigers have started to play hot again. Milwuakee hosts Atlanta for the next two nights. It should be a fun week.

Go Cubs.

Attached below is one cool picture from last night’s game. I found it at the Tribune website

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Wow.

The Cubs are rocking at Wrigley Field.  They just swept the White Sox which brings their total of series sweeps at Wrigley to eight.  The Cubs have swept the past four series: White Sox, Braves, Rockies, and Dodgers.   The Cubs are now 32-8 at Wrigley.  They have a fourteen game winning streak at Wrigley for the first time in over seventy years.  It’s always nice to win games like these for the home crowd, especially when it is against the other team in town.

Up next, the Cubs host the Baltimore Orioles.  The Cubs are currently 5-4 against the American League.  They have six games remaining against the American League (three with Baltimore and three with the White Sox).

Go Cubs

Today, the Cubs used a nine run fourth inning to beat the White Sox.  The Cubs trailed 4-1 going into the fourth inning.  A pair of home runs in the fourth by Jim Edmonds and another homer by Ramirez helped give the Cubs the lead for the day.  This puts the Cubs current winning streak at Wrigley to thirteen games won.  The last Cubs loss at Wrigley was Saturday, May 17 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Even though the Cubs won, the Red Sox were unable to beat the Cardinals at Fenway once again.  The Cardinals just will not seem to go away.  And don’t look now, but the Brewers are on a roll as they have moved to within 6.5 games of the Cubs.  I’m still not sure who our competition is going to be in the division— I’d like to think that the Cardinals will come back to earth and go on some fifteen game losing streak, but as the season goes on I keep thinking that isn’t going to happen.  And if Milwaukee starts getting hot and staying hot, they could be a handful as well.

Interesting note: The Cubs have only lost two series all season at Wrigley— both series losses came against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Go Cubs.

Cubs hosted the Sox today for the first game in the Crosstown Classic.  The all time series was tied at something like 30-30.

The Cubs struck first with Derrek Lee’s double play that allowed Fukudome to score from third.  The Sox answered with Jermaine Dye’s solo blast onto Waveland and Pierzienski’s two run shot.  The Cubs offense was dead for the first six innings but it came awake in the late innings as it usually does at Wrigley.  Lee smacked one into the right field bleachers on the first pitch of the seventh inning.  Ramirez followed with a homer of his own to tie the game at 3-3.  Cubs managed to hold the Sox at three runs as they went into the ninth inning.  On the second pitch of the ninth inning, Ramirez smacked one straight to center field to cap the walk off win.  Fans went nuts and it certainly was one to remember.

This walk-off was reminiscent of  the Cubs walk-off win against the Brewers last June, which, was ironically won by Ramirez.

Anyway, one last thing I want to cover is attitudes.  I think that Cubs fans get a bit too crazy when it comes to losing games.  To put things into perspective, one trend that I’ve noticed is that while we are impressive at home (30-8), we have played slightly under .500 on the road (16-20).   Regardless, let’s just hypothetically say that the Cubs continue this trend: they would win a little more than 60 home games and a little less then 40 on the road.  This would come out to about 100 wins.  It’s really rare that a team wins 100 games and does not make the post season, so there should not be much to worry about (obviously, this is barring all injuries… which, as it seems, Zambrano is ok and Soriano is doing better then expected).

Go Cubs.

For the first time this season, the Cubs have been swept and have dropped three straight games.  The Cubs held on to a 3-1 lead going into the bottom of the seventh inning, but the usually reliable Carlos Marmol wound up having difficulty throwing strikes and refraining from hitting batters.  Marmol wound up loading the bases and then hitting a batter to make the score 2-3.  Eyre came in and on his second pitch, Carl Crawford blasted the ball out of the park for a grand slam.  This gave the Rays the lead for good.

It’s funny how I was so excited to hear our interleague schedule back when it was announced.  I would never have thought we’d be swept by the Rays, and I didn’t think Toronto would cause us any problems.  I also assumed that the games against the Sox wouldn’t be all that meaningful as I figured the Sox would be a 4th or 5th place team in their division.  Surely enough, I am wrong… although I must admit, I guess it’s still better than having to face the Red Sox or Yankees.

Anyway, let’s get back to Wrigley where we actually know how to win.  Go Cubs, please beat the Sox.