Tuesday’s night game against the Cincinnati Reds could be the one game that really seperated the Chicago Cubs from the rest of the division. Behind seven strong innings from Rich Harden, the Cubs defeated the Cincinnati Reds 5-0 and went up six games on the Milwaukee Brewers and eight in a half games up on the St. Louis Cardinals. I’m not saying the Cubs have things locked up, but if they can extend this six game lead into a an eight or nine game lead this week, things will be looking very good for the Cubs.

Harden through his best game in a Cubs uniform as he limited the visiting Reds to only two hits in seven innings of action. Harden once again struckout atleast ten batters which was his fourth time in seven starts for the Cubs. Harden also bunted in the first Cubs run when Geovany Soto scored from third in the fifth inning.

Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood had no problems shutting down the Reds in the eighth and ninth innings as the combination kept the Reds hitters guessing at the plate over the final few innings.

The Cubbies added four runs in the eighth off relievers Reds relievers Mike Lincoln and Bill Bray. Derrek Lee started things off with an RBI single, Aramis Ramirez then hit a double down the left field line that scored a run. Kosuke Fukudome then had a two run single to center field with the bases loaded to score two more runs.

The Cubs improved to a season-high 29 games over .500 at 77-48. Chicago has won seven of eight and 17 of its last 21.

Ted Lilly will be going to the mound on Wednesday evening against Bronson Arroyo. It seems that the Cubs either hit Arroyo very hard and score a lot of runs, or they have problems with his junk pitches and struggle at the plate. It will be interesting to see how the game turns out.

The Chicago Cubs won their eighth straight road game as they completed a three game sweep of the Atlanta Braves with a 11-7 victory on Thursday night. That is exactly what the team was hoping to do as far as the offense goes. They rocked Braves starting pitcher Tom Glavine right when they game started and never let up.

It seemed like anytime the Cubs scored the Braves would come right back with a couple of runs of their own. Good thing that the Cubs offense was four runs better then the Braves and they were still able to get the victory.

Ted Lilly didn’t have his best stuff but the offense picked him up. Lilly improved to 12-6 as hey got the win after pitching six innings. Lilly gave up eight hits and four runs in the game. Bob Howry gave up the other three runs as Jeff Francoeur took him deep in the seventh inning for a three run home run.

Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood also pitched in the game. Marmol threw 1 1/3 innings without giving up a hit while Wood allowed two hits in the ninth but did not allow the Braves to score.

Aramis Ramirez went 2-2 in the game with three rbi. Ramirez went deep in the third inning for all three of his rbi’s. He later scored in the fifth inning and left the game with a contusion on his hip. Hopefully he will stop sliding into home plate head first because he is just asking for trouble when he does that.

Geovany Soto also had a good game at the plate as he went 1-2 with two rbi and two walks. Geo is swinging the bat pretty good the past week or so. Alfonso Soriano absolutely crushed a home run and finished with two rbi. Reed Johnson, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Theriot, and Daryle Ward all added single rbi’s in the game as well.

With the Brewers loss to the Padres, the Cubs are now up 4.5 games in the division. They will now fly down to Florida to take on the Marlins over the weekend. Hopefully they can play well against the Marlins as they always seem to give the Cubs problems.

Go Cubbies!

The Cubs got things started off nicely with a 10-2 victory in the first game of two against the Atlanta Braves.  After last nights game was rained out, the Cubs came out of the gates and swung the bats very good while knocking out the Braves starting pitcher Charlie Morton out of the game after only 2 1/3 innings.  The Braves bullpen had to throw a lot of pitches so I really like the teams chances of sweeping the double header.

Geovany Soto and Jim Edmonds had a great game at the plate.  Soto had a two run double and a two run home run to finish the game 3-4 with four rbi.  Edmonds had a two run home run and a rbi double to finish with three rbi.  Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Theriot, and Mark Derosa all added one rbi each as well.

Jason Marquis threw a lot of pitches as he worked out of multiple jams but lasted 5 1/3 innings to pick up the win.  Marquis is now 8-7 on the year with a 4.67 era.  Neal Cotts finished up the sixth inning after Marquis exited the game and then Jeff Samardzija pitched the seventh and eighth innings.  Bob Howry finished things up with a scoreless inning in the ninth.

The Cubs should be setup nicely for the second game of the double header as Rich Harden will start the game.  The Cubs still have Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol in the bullpen as well.  Hopefully we see a double header sweep of the Braves and then a Padres win over the Brewers!

GO CUBS!!

What a way to kick off an exciting weekend of baseball between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals!  The Cubs and Cards played extra innings and it was the Cubs coming out on top with a 3-2 victory in 11 innings on Friday afternoon.  Great pitching and timely hitting for the Cubs was what pushed them over the top.

Jim Edmonds, playing against his former team had two solo home runs to lead the Cubs with two rbi.  Edmonds went deep in the second and seventh innings of the game.  Without Jimmy, the Cubs would have been shutout and lost the game.  Great game for Edmonds!

The game winning run in the 11th inning came off the bat of Henry Blanco who was hitting with zero outs and the bases loaded.  Blanco signled to left field and Derrek Lee scored the winning run.  Lee started the inning off with a walk and then moved to third base on a single by Aramis Ramirez.  Cardinals pitcher Ryan Franklin then walked Kosuke Fukudome to load the bases before Blanco’s game winning hit.

On the mound it was Bob Howry picking up the win to improve his record to  5-4.  Howry looked pretty good in his one inning of action as he threw a lot more breaking balls early in the count then he has been.  Great to see Howry out there throwing the ball like he is capable of.

Jeff Samardzija allowed one hit in two innings as he did a great job as well.  Jeff has really been throwing the ball well and Lou has a lot of confidence in him right now.  Ted Lilly pitched 7 1/3 innings before being taken out in the eighth inning for Carlos Marmol.  Marmol finished up the eighth inning by recording the final two outs.

The Cubs and Cards will battle it out Saturday afternoon in the second game of the series.  The game will be shown on FOX so make sure you tune if you can’t make it to the game. I’ll be sitting out in the bleachers with my wife and I can’t wait!

Wow!  The Chicago Cubs beat up on the Milwaukee Brewers once again and completed a four game sweep of the Brewers up in Milwaukee.  The Cubs got great pitching from Rich Harden and great hitting in the game as they won 11-4.  The Cubs are now five games up on the Brewers in the division!

Harden threw seven innings to get his first win with the Cubs.  Harden allowed six hits and one run while striking out nine batters.  His only mistake was to Prince Fielder who hit a solo home run in the seventh inning.  Other then that one mistake, Harden was wheeling and dealing all game long.  Bob Howry tossed a scoreless inning in the eighth inning and then Scott Eyre was charged with three runs in the ninth inning.  Yeah you read that right, Howry threw a scoreless inning!  Eyre continues to struggle as he just isn’t getting used that much anymore.  He needs to get into a good rythum but I don’t think Lou has very much confidence in him right now.

The offense was led by Jim Edmonds who had two home runs and five rbi.  Edmonds first hit a solo home run in the third inning, and then added a grand slam in the fourth inning.  Kosuke Fukudome added a two run home run while Alfonso Soriano also had a solo shot.  Mike Fontenot had two rbi in a pitch hitters role and Aramis Ramirez added a rbi as well.

Overall it was a great series for the Cubs as they pretty much crushed the brew crew in every game.  The Cubs will now welcome the Pittsburgh Pirates into town for a afternoon game on Friday.  Hopefully the Cubs keep playing good and we can get another sweep and extend the lead in the division!

GO CUBS GO!

It was another great game for the Cubs offense as they hammered Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Ben Sheets and went on to beat the Brew Crew by the score of 7-1.  The Cubs offense had 15 hits and scored seven runs while the Brewers struggled against Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano and did not score a run until the ninth inning.

Every Cubs batter had atleast one hit as everyone contributed on Tuesday night.  The team had seven straight hits to open the sixth inning and they blew the game open by sending ten batters to the plate and scoring five runs in the inning.

Kosuke Fukdome and Mark DeRosa led the team with two rbi each.  Aramis Ramirez went 4-5 with three doubles and also had one rbi.  Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano had the other two rbi for the team.  It was awesome to see so much production out of the lineup.  A-Ram was locked in at the plate all night long and had some great swings which was nice to see as well.

Big Z threw eight scoreless innings while striking out a season high nine batters to get the win.  Zambrano is now 12-4 on the year with a 2.80 era.  Big Z did show some emotion in the game when he popped up a sac bunt attempt and then broke the bat over his leg.  Atleast he wasn’t getting to hot headed out there on the mound.

Jeff Samardzija came in and pitched the ninth inning and gave up one run.  He was mostly throwing fastballs and just letting the Brewers hit it.  I don’t have a problem with that one run scoring because the Cubs had such a big lead and with a big lead all you can ask the pitcher to do was throw strikes and that was what he was doing.

The Cubs are now up three games on the Brewers and and four games on the Cardinals in the division.  Let’s all sit back and hopefully watch another Cubs victory over the Brewers on Wednesday night!

Wahoo, two games in a row that the Cubs have won!  The Cubs defeated the Florida Marlins 6-3 on Thursday night as the two teams opened up a four game series at Wrigley Field.  Things got a little dicey late in the game but the Cubs prevailed and went onto double up the fish.

The Cubs got out of a bases loaded jam in the 8th inning with zero outs by only giving up one run.  Things could have been a lot different had Mark DeRosa not made a spectacular diving catch on a ball for the second out of the inning.  The Cubs used four of their six relief pitchers in the inning to get out of the jam.  Sean Marshall and Scott Eyre were the only relief pitchers to not see action in the 8th inning.

Carlos Zambrano picked up the win as he pitched seven innings.  Big Z gave up six hits and two runs while striking out six batters.  He made one mistake to Hanley Ramirez who hit a two run home run in the 3rd inning.  Other then that, Zambrano was pretty good.

Carlos Marmol recorded the final out in the 8th inning, and then had some troubles in the 9th as he allowed the first two runners on base without recording an out.  He then struck out Hanley Ramirez for the first out and then got Alfredo Amezaga to ground out to Marmol who got the out at second base.  With runners on the corners, Jorge Cantu walked to load the bases and bring up Wes Helms.  Helms then struckout to end the ballgame.

Ronny Cedeno and Henry Blanco both hit solo home runs in the game for the Cubs.  Zambrano had a rbi double that really got the Cubs rally going in the 5th inning.  Derrek Lee then walked with the bases loaded to score another run and Aramis Ramirez delivered a double that scored two more runs.  Lee was thrown out at home plate on the Ramirez double.

Kerry Wood was finally put on the disabled list as the team had been hinting at it for the past few days.  The blister on his throwing hand is getting better but he will need some side sessions to get back into game shape.  One name that is being thrown out there to be called up is Jeff Samardzija.  I think it will either be Samardzija or the Cubs will recall Michael Wuertz.  What does everyone else think?

The Chicago Cubs once again lost down in Arizona as they fell to the Diamondbacks by the score of 9-2 on Tuesday night.  Once again the offense struggled at the plate as they just can’t get any runs across the plate.  The pitching was terrible as well in the late innings so the team really deserved to have their butts kicked like they did.

Jason Marquis started the game for the Cubs and pitched six innings.  Marquis gave up five hits and three runs as he took the loss and is now 6-6 on the year.  Things got bad once Marquis left however as Sean Marshall gave up three hits and two runs while only recording two outs in the 7th inning.  Chad Gaudin came in to get Mark Reynolds for the final out of the 7th inning.  In the 8th inning, Kevin Hart allowed four more runs (two were earned) to score on only two hits.  The big hit was a double by Conor Jackson.  Neal Cotts came in and finally got the Cubs out of that inning by striking out Miguel Montero.

As for the offense, or we should say crappy offense, they struckout nine times and left 19 runners on base while scoring only two runs.  Mike Fontenot had a rbi triple that scored Mark DeRosa in the 4th inning and then Daryle Ward hit a solo home run in the 8th inning for the Cubs second and final run.  The middle of the lineup hurt the Cubs once again as Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, and Jim Edmonds went a combined 0-10 in the game.  All three of those players are in big slumps.  Lee can’t seem to stop hitting into double plays and could probably use a day off.  I say Piniella should sit Ramirez and Lee for Wednesday’s game and let them get a little bit of rest.

One bright spot is that Alfonso Soriano might be back in the lineup for the game on Wednesday.  That might be exactly what the Cubs need to get going.  Let’s all hope so anyways.

So once again the Chicago Cubs offense struggled as they were only able to come up with two hits and they lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks by the score of 2-0 on Monday night.  The Cubs did hit some hard balls to the warning track in the game, but they just didn’t have enough to get it out of the stadium.  This offense should never be two hit or shutout in a game if you ask me.

It was really bad that the offense struggled because starting pitcher Rich Harden pitched great.  He made one mistake in the sixth inning when he gave up a solo home run to Alex Romero but other then that he pitched great.  Harden struckout ten batters in his seven innings of action but took the loss and is now 0-1 in the National League.

Bob Howry gave up a rbi triple in the eighth inning to Stephen Drew which was a big run for the Diamondbacks.  It seems that Howry has been giving up atleast one run everytime he takes the mound as of late.  Hopefully he can get that figured out soon.

The Cubs did get a little rally going in the ninth inning when they got the first two runners on base but Derrek Lee got jammed on a 2-0 pitch and grounded into a double play.  Aramis Ramirez then ended the game on a groundout and the rally was all over.  So will the offense get going on Tuesday night?  I sure hope so because Jason Marquis will be taking the mound.

Here is one interesting note that I heard after the game:  Randy Johnson is now 13-0 in his career against the Chicago Cubs.  Wow, talk about dominating one team…