Welcome to Go Cubs Go

The Cubs lost again to the Phillies to manage a split with them in this four game set.  Things seemed to be going the Cubs way in the first two games of this series.  It seemed as though the Cubs always had a chance to come back late in every game, but the past two days they have been unable to get that big hit; specifically, in the eighth inning.  The Cubs have put together a rally in the eighth inning in every single game of this series, but only were able to make a statement on Thursday nights’ game with the Aramis Ramirez grand slam.

Carlos Zambrano was scratched from the start as he was complaining of a “tired arm.”  It seems as though Zambrano will be OK as he will start Tuesday against the Houston Astros.  Zambrano has put together good career numbers against Houston as he is 6-2 with a 2.10 ERA in the past three years.  Also in the last three years, Zambrano has hit three home runs of his own against the Astros.

In other news, the Milwaukee Brewers continue winning as they swept away the Pittsburgh Pirates and pulled within 4.5 games.  The Pirates managed one measely hit as CC Sabathia pitched yet another complete game.  Apparently, the Brewers are protesting the alleged base hit in an attempt to award CC with a no-hitter.  Brewers manager Ned Yost claims that the hit should’ve been scored as an error on the pitcher.

Up next, the Cubs play the Astros on Labor Day.  Roy Oswalt (12-9) will face Jason Marquis (9-7).  That’d be pretty sweet for Marquis to get the win and become the fourth starter on the staff with double-digit wins.

Go Cubs!

That’s one down, five more to go.

Go Cubs!

The Cubs are down 1-3 and are going into the top of the eighth inning.  Ted Lilly continues to be the tough luck the pitcher for the Cubs as he pitched a fairly well.  The offense, for the fourth straight game, has struggled to put together a good lead early.  The offense scored only two runs at Pittsburgh on Wednesday: those two runs came on a suicide squeeze and a force out.  Thursday, the Cubs had that one good inning in the eighth but failed to score a whole lot of runs at any other point throughout the game.  Yesterday, the Cubs had many opportunities but did not cash in on them as they only scored three in their seventh straight win.  And today, the Cubs have managed only one run and have left six men on base.

Ryan Howard just hit a solo home run to put the Phillies up 4-1, and Jason Werth just hit his second home run of the game to put them up 5-1.  PS- Neal Cotts is terrible.

Go Cubs!

The Cubs won their seventh straight game and their twentieth on the month.  This win also guarantees at the very least a split with the Phillies; ultimately extending their series winning streak to ten.  In a close game that featured all sorts of crazy moments, the Cubs were able to be more efficient then the Phillies as they won 3-2.  The Cubs had four hits while the Phillies posted six hits.  The win puts the Cubs to an 85-50 record.  Note: 85 wins was the total wins for the entire 2007 season.  Pretty cool to hit that same mark, in August.

Up next, the Cubs hope to continue their winning ways as Ted Lilly will face Brett Myers.  While the pitching matchup seems to favor the Cubs in this one, it almost seems like the Phillies’ offense is bound to explode in one of these games.  With Lilly’s 4.23 ERA, it is very possible that this could be the game of the series where the Phillies’ offense comes back to life.

Meanwhile, a look around the league:  the Brewers beat the Pirates tonight to remain 6.5 games behind the Cubs.  The Cardinals lost to the Astros to pretty much knock them out of any playoff hopes at this point; as they are eleven games back on the Cubs and 4.5 back of the Brewers in the Wild Card.  The Cubs hold on to the best record in baseball by two games, despite the Rays blowing out the Orioles to clinch their first winning season in franchise history.

Go Cubs!

Tonight, the mighty Chicago Cubs will be facing the Fighting Phillies of Philadelphia.  The Phillies are currently a half game back of the Mets in the race in the East.  Like the Cubs, the Phillies are looking for back to back division championships.  This should be an entertaining four game series as the pitching matchups look great and both teams have offenses that can explode at any given moment.Last night, the Milwaukee Brewers blew a 3-0 lead to fall against the St. Louis Cardinals.  This loss pushes Milwaukee to six games behind the Cubs.  Every game from here on out is critical for the Cubs’ postseason chances as they play twenty-six of their final twenty-nine games against teams above the .500 mark.  The Cubs also play sixteen of these games on the road.

The Cubs also hold a 2.5 game advantage on the Angels for the best record in baseball.  I think this is a pretty spot to claim, and I hope they stay here the rest of the year.  Cubs are 18-6 in the month of August.  With four games remaining, the Cubs could lose all four games and still have the best record by month so far this season.

On the other hand, keep on winning, make it 22!

Will post more, maybe pictures, after the game.

EDIT:   I am convinced that I’m bad luck.  Seems like more often than not when I attend games at Wrigley, the Cubs lose.  My record at games is abysmal when you consider how great they’ve been at home this year.  So I leave tonight at the bottom of the seventh, come home, turn on the tv in the middle of the eighth and they are threatening with two men on and nobody out: it’s 2-4.

Go Cubs!

The Cubs have had several opportunities so far today but have failed to score through five innings.  The good news: neither has Pittsburgh.

The Pirates have had a few opportunities as well but have gotten on base with two outs and fail to string together a few big hits.

I was hoping that the Cubs would score at least one more run then the Pirates as soon as possible so that if there is a rain delay, the game would be official.  Fortunately, there hasn’t been any rain yet, but Len and Bob keep mentioning how it’s only a matter of time.  Hopefully, the Cubs hold off the Pirates and are able to score a couple runs before any rain comes so they can get the win.

Not looking great at the moment as Pittsburgh leads off the fifth with a base hit and a sacrifice bunt to advance the runner.

Game notes: The Cubs are looking to go 14-4 against the Bucs.  The last time that a Cubs team won fourteen against another team was in 1978 when they won fifteen against the St. Louis Cardinals.  The Cubs have already won the series against Pittsburgh as this bring them to nine consecutive series wins.  The last time a Cubs team did this?  1907 when they won ten straight series to start the season.

The Cubs head back to Wrigley Field for a potentially historic night game tomorrow against the Philadelphia Phillies.  Major League Baseball has implemented Instant Replay for boundary calls on home runs.  The Cubs-Phillies game is among only two other games tomorrow that might use Instant Replay.  Personally, I’m not a big fan of Instant Replay, maybe I’ll write more about that another day.  I have this unsettling feeling that now that Instant Replay exists, it will somehow find a way to screw us over in the playoffs (ie: kind of like all the fan interferences and dropped third strikes, etc. etc. that went unnoticed.  You get the idea).  I guess I’ll just have to reference back to this post when/if it happens, until then…

Go Cubs!

For the third time in his last four starts, Carlos Zambrano has not looked like the ace of this pitching staff.  Over his last four starts, Zambrano has given up: nine earned runs, five earned runs, one earned run, and tonight he has already given up five in 4.1 innings pitched.  He will not factor into tonight’s decision as he was removed with the score being 6-5.

Pirates just scored to tie it back up at 6-6.

Zambrano wasn’t all bad as he continued to hit the bat well.  He has hit in thirteen consecutive games after tonight.  He had an RBI as well to give him thirteen RBI’s on the season.

And Neal Cotts is in to replace Jeff Samardzija.  What do you know, Cotts got the final out of the inning to limit the damage.

Cubs offense needs to get it going as six runs are obviously not enough.  This is another one of those games that you feel like we should win: you have your stud ace on the mound against a pitcher whose ERA is in the high 5.00’s, you are playing a team that is the worst in your division, and you’re playing a team that you have a 12-4 record against.  This really shouldn’t be that hard, no?

Well, let’s see if the Cubs can score some more runs and have the bullpen shut the Pirates down for the rest of the night.

Meanwhile, it looks as though the residue from Hurricane Faye will be making it’s way down the east coast.  There’s something like an 80% chance of heavy rain tomorrow so there’s a good chance the final game of the series may not be played.  In the event it isn’t played, I believe that they would make the game up on an off day; however, Pittsburgh only has two more off-days and they both happen to fall on days when the Cubs are playing someone else.  Therefore, if I remember correctly, that game would not be played unless there were playoff implications.  I kind of hope this game does get played tomorrow as I would rather the Cubs get one last shot at the Pirates this year because those seem to be guarenteed wins.  We are going to need as many of those as we can as our only remaining series against a sub .500 team will be against the Cincinnati Reds.

Geovany Soto starts off the sixth inning with his twentith home run on the year to give the Cubs the lead back.  Meanwhile, Milwaukee leads St. Louis: 2-0, behind their ace, Ben Sheets.

Go Cubs!

EDIT:  CUBS WIN!  What a wild game at PNC.  14-9 Final.

Jim Edmonds just led off the top of the second with a lead off triple…  let’s see if we can bring him in!

Anyway, I thought that since this is the last series against the Pirates this year, it would be neat to post some pictures from a trip I took to PNC Park last summer.  Everyone says PNC is the best park in all of baseball, but I didn’t really know what to think.  Personally, I put Wrigley at the top and follow it up with Turner Field.  But PNC was pretty nice, and here’s why:

BEST SEATS IN THE HOUSE

Technically, I guess this wouldn’t be the case all the time, but it was August and the Pirates were well on their way to yet another losing season.  I believe they were playing the St. Louis Cardinals too, so it wasn’t like it was that meaningful of a game.  Anyway, the cool thing about PNC Park is that since there is such low fan support nowadays, you can essentially sit anywhere you’d like.  I moved around all game long and got to see the park from all different angles.  Tickets were also relatively cheap: I paid $9.00 and ultimately got to sit wherever I wanted.

GREAT FOOD/SITES

Ok, I don’t really have any pictures of food, but believe me, it is real good.  You can get whatever you want: they got it at PNC.  It can be a bit pricey though.  The sites are great as the park offers an awesome view of the downtown area and the Allegheny River.  There are restaurant areas out beyond the bleacher area and you can hang out and take in the scenery.

 PRIDE

While the fans definitely don’t seem to help with bolstering “Pirate Pride,” the stadium itself honors the Pirate greats.  They use the video scoreboard to show all the highlights in franchise history prior to game start.  Also, there are statues of past great players around the park.  Above, is Willie Stargell.

Overall, I think the park has a lot of cool features, but I think a lot is lacking because of the low turn-out, excitement, etc.  I think that park has the potential to be a really fun place if the organization can put together a better product.  Until then, PNC is a pretty decent park that I would recommend you go check out sometime.  I personally hate this ballpark because it’s impossible to hit a home run and so often the Cubs have hit balls 350 feet only to be outs in PNC.  Obviously, this is a personal vendetta… it’s the same reason I hate places like Chase Field and Dolphin Stadium.  Oh yes, I would also suggest making it out there for a day game.  I don’t know why exactly, but I felt that the park just wasn’t doing it for me in the night.  It’s kind of like you should go to Wrigley Field for a day game to get the real experience.  There are some parks that work better at night: I would say a Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati is one example… you get the idea.

Anyway, Cubs lead, 5-0, after a three-run home run by Aramis Ramirez.  Haha, just as I mention that it’s impossible to hit a home run in the ballpark, right? Jim Edmonds follows up with a double: he is a home run and single shy of the cycle.

Go Cubs!

Why yes Miller Lite, things sure do seem better when there is a pennant race at the Friendly Confines.

Wow. What a season this has been. I really don’t even know where to begin on all the awesome stats from today’s game so I’ll just jump right into a stream of consciousness:

-Today’s win put the Cubs to thirty games over .500 for the first time since the 1984 campaign.

-The win today makes the Cubs the only team in the majors right now to eighty wins as they once again hold the title for “Best record in baseball.”

-Mark DeRosa hit a home run today which was his fourth straight day with a home run.

-The Cubs won their eighth consecutive series and have not lost a home series since playing the Baltimore Orioles on June 26th.  They haven’t won eight consecutive series since 1937.

-Harden struck out eleven batters today; a career high.  This puts his total strikeouts as a Cub at 59 in 42 innings pitched.

Overall, this Cubs team shows no signs of stopping any time soon. They keep on rolling and knocking days off the calendar. There seems to be no fear about what Milwaukee or St. Louis or what anyone else is doing as the Cubs just keep on taking care of business. By the way, while the Cubs play in Pittsburgh tomorrow, both the Brewers and Cardinals are off to prepare for a two game set on Tuesday and Wednesday. Therefore, the Cubs will gain a little bit of ground whether it be in the division race or the wild card race; regardless of what happens in Pittsburgh.

Up next, the Cubs finish the season series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cubs will go to Pittsburgh where they are 4-2 this year. Granted, the Cubs are 7-2 at Wrigley against the Pirates. It would be nice to see nine straight series wins.

It’s also pretty cool to see that with the wins against Washington, the Cubs have automatically clinched a better record then the Nationals. Also, with the San Diego Padres losing today, the Cubs have also automatically clinched a better record then them. Pretty neat to be on the other side of these stats for once. That’s two National League teams down, thirteen to go.

Go Cubs!

They avoided a losing streak for the sixth time this month. The Cubs won their seventy-ninth game of the season at Wrigley Field and gave Ryan Dempster a career best, fifteenth win on the season. The Cubs look to take the series tomorrow with Rich Harden on the mound. The season series is at 3-2 in favor of the Washington Nationals.

It was a fairly solid game all around. The power is starting to come back as Aramis Ramirez hit two three-run home runs today. Mark DeRosa hit a home run for the third straight game. The Cubs hoped to extend their lead in the division and wild card; however, Milwaukee is currently off to a good start against Pittsburgh while St. Louis is trailing by one run during a rain delay in the ninth inning.

The Cubs are three wins away from clinching a winning season. They didn’t do that until September 22 last year in the home series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cubs have a very good shot at completing this in the next series as they have one more against the Nationals and a three game set in Pittsburgh where the Cubs have an 11-4 overall record against the Pirates this season. The Cubs return to Wrigley for a four game series against the Philadelphia Phillies to close out the month of August.

Go Cubs!