Clark & Addison Blog - CubHub.net

With a Brewers win and Mets loss today, the Brewers could clinch the Wild Card. Today’s game being irrelevant for the Cubs, and in my view having the Brewers win the Wild Card being favorable for the Cubs, it may be that both teams will celebrate a Brewers win at Miller Park.

If the Brewers are the Wild Card, the Cubs would face the Western Division champion LA Dodgers in the NLDS. Of all the possible scenarios still on the table, I think I like this matchup best for the Cubs. Plus a buddy who is a die-hard Cubs fan just moved to LA and got tickets to NLDS Game 3 at Dodger Stadium. That could conceivably be the clincher if the Cubs sweep! Ok, I’m getting a head of myself here.

I would rather see the Cubs face the Dodgers from a matchup perspective than either the Phillies or Mets. They can’t face the Brewers in round one because they are both in the same division. I think the Phillies would be the toughest opponent for the Cubs, followed by Mets, Dodgers and Brewers. Any way you slice it, this is an excellent conversation to have for Cub fans!

Ok, now this is a weird one. We all know from his years at the helm of the Cubs that Dusty Baker like to have “his guys” around him. When he singed as manager of the Reds, suddenly former Cub players started appearing on his roster; Paul Bako, David Weathers, Kent Mercker, Jerry Hairston Jr, and Corey Patterson.  How Neifi Perez didn’t get signed I’ll never know. Also he brought in some familiar coaching names in Chris Speier and Dick Pole. As the saying goes, Dusty really “got the band back together!”

Now comes word there has been a rumor circulating about Corey Patterson dating Dusty’s daughter, resulting in him getting a starting job in the Reds center field.  Today Dusty address that in a the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The Cubs Magic Number stands at 2 going into today’s action. Any combination of Cubs wins and Brewers losses that equal 2 clinches the National League Central Division Championshipfor the Northsiders!  When that happens - likely over the next couple days (as predicted here on Aug 29) - The Chicago Lakeview neighborhood known as Wrigleyville will erupt with what is sure to be a weekend long party. Rarely have we seen the Cubs clinch at home, and on a weekend, and with the nice weather…well as Barack Obama is known to say, Cubs fans sure like a party.

With 2 outs and down by 4 in the bottom of the ninth yesterday, the Cubs rallied to tie and eventually won the game in the 12th.  Further evidence this is not your father’s Chicago Cubs ‘lovable losers’ team. 

2008 NL Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto cracked a 3 run bomb to send the game to extras and Derrek Lee came through with a clutch single to center to drive home the winning run in an improbable victory. This one really drove a nail into the Brewers playoff aspirations knocking another 2 games off the Cubs Magic Number and giving them another loss to land them a game and a half back in the NL Wild Card race.

A critical development here is Derrek Lee’s clutch hit.  His numbers have been good this year but he has not stepped up as the offensive leader we all expect him to be. D-Lee has really struggled to drive the ball, and clutch hits have been few and far between. Maybe this game will get him going a bit.  Its better to peak going into the playoffs than not so let’s hope this is the catalyst for him. So far this team really hasn’t needed him - or any single player - to win games.  But in the playoffs where the game often hangs in the balance on every pitch, we need our big guys to produce. Let’s hope Lee can finish strong.

Milwaukee GM Doug Melvin has fired manager Ned Yost as of today. This move is long overdue for the free-falling Brewers team, now in jeopardy of winning the Wild Card.  Yost has long been seen as kind of an odd duck kind of manager so this is not really a shock to me. The guy should be fired if for no other reason than the way he has handled their star mid-season pickup, CC Sabathia. He has ridden him hard with 6 Complete Games in his 13 starts as a Brewer.

I realize they have no bullpen but you just can’t ride a guy that hard and expect to have anything left for him in the postseason. I have been astonished at how many games he has been left out there with 5, 7 run leads in the 8th & 9th innings. Yost was either going to burn him out or get him injured.  Now it appears iffy that they make the playoffs at all.  Good riddance to an inferior manager.

Ted Lilly got the message. He apparently took to heart the message Lou was trying to send to his team via shouting his frustrations in a post-game news conference from a room adjacent to the Cubs locker room. Presumably the team could hear Lou going off after Tuesday’s loss but his message was not anything they didn’t know.

Ted Lilly took it to the field last night and pitched eight stellar innings of ball. He also ran over Cards catcher Yadier Molina, knocking him out of the game even though Lilly was out on the play. That was a message delivered by Lilly to the rest of the league by way of the Cardinals. The message is this team wants to win and will run over people to do so - even pitchers running over catchers in full gear. Lou said on Tuesday the Cubs have to ‘roll up their shirts’ and ‘go out and kick somebody’s ass’. Ted Lilly did just that last night. Impressive.

Lou Piniella has been commenting on all the historical references coming up these days.  You know, the “…not since 1984″, or “last time that happened was 1935″, “a hundred years since…” stuff.  Lou says he’s not interested in all that, he just wants this team to focus on what is in front of them. Piniella has been here before and knows his squad has to finish strong.

With the LA Angels up 17 games in their division, they will clinch with weeks to go in the season. This will then present the challenge for them that Lou had with his 2001 Mariners team that won 116 games and got stale waiting for the playoffs. They lost the ALCS to the Yankees 4 games to 1 after just making it through the ALDS, winning game 5 at home over the Indians. I would like to see the Cubs cruise into the division title with about 7-10 days to go in the season - no excitement, no streaks, just winning series’. This would give them time to rest some guys, line up their rotation, and prepare to face (presumably) the NL West division champs, LA or Arizona. Once in the playoffs, victory goes to the hottest team.

Your Turn

Some great comments have come in lately from AJ on Cubs Never Out Of It post, and from Lamar Miller on the Joe Morgan Is A Putz post. 

AJ pointed out how with the Brewers 9 games abck of the Cubs in the loss column, they would need to go 26-5 in their remaining 31 games to beat out the Cubs assuming we slump to .500 (16-16) in our last 32 games. That’s an excellent observation that illustrates how well in hand this Cubs team has the division.  Just take care of business modestly and we are home free. 

Lamar added on to many of the posts and comments received at CubHub.net World HQ regarding the ineptness of Joe Morgan. That post was actually picked up by the Sun-Times and Reuters there was so much interest.

Remember - this is a site for all Cubs fans - your comments are encouraged. Join the conversation!

Dusty’s Cincinnati Reds are a mere shadow of their already meager former selves with the absence of notorious Cub killer, Adam Dunn.  The big redheaded slugger hit a whopping 38 home runs against the Cubs in his career with 7 of them coming off of Carlos Zambrano alone.  The guy just plain feasted on Cubs pitching, particularly at Wrigley Field where he hit 23 of his 38 bombs.  His trade to Arizona will help the Cubs …until playoff time comes!

Along with Dunn, the Reds dumped Ken Griffey Jroff to the White Sox leaving the team with few power options and lots of kids in their lineup.  Joey Votto hit 3 HRs in a game against the Cubs this year, but that doesn’t happen every day. We’ll see what magic Dusty has for this team in transition.

The good folks at BaseballProspectus have run a simulation to determine the statistical chances of teams making the 2008 playoffs. Running the remainder of the season one million times, they show the Cubs as 89.12% certain to win the division, with another 9.81% chance of being the Wild Card entry, if they were come in second to the Brewers. This gives the 2008 Chicago Cubs a statistical chance of 98.93721% to make the playoffs!

Sure, I’m drinking the Cubbie Kool-Aid, but here is actually something scientific to stand on. The ‘08 Chicago Cubs will play meaningful baseball in October. That’s all well and good, but it is equally fair to point out there is a chance (~1.6%) they don’t make it too.  But let’s focus on finishing the season strong and lining up well for - at least - the divisional playoffs.

This simulation shows the division winners as the Cubs & Mets, with a toss up in the West of the Dodgers & D’Backs and Brewers as Wild Card.  The Cubs would have the best record which would usually get the Wild Card in Round 1 (NLDS), but two teams from the same division cannot play each other in the NLDS. So the Cubs would play, according to Baseball Prospectus, the winner of the NL-West.  So who would you rather play, Arizona or LA???

Now I am willing to reconsider my position on Jim Edmonds as a Cub.  My original assertion was that he had to beat his old team, the dreaded Cardinals to ‘make his bones’ as it were, in Cubs pinstripes.  With today’s two HR day, along with a sparkling diving catch, I now finally accept Jim Edmonds as a Cub.  He has made an impact. He has proven he does in fact have more baseball in him. He has made GM Jim Hendry look awfully, awfully good in picking him up for basically nothing.  In fact, the Cards still pay millions of his salary. That sweetens the deal as the Cubs pound a nail in the 2008 Cardinals season.

When the Cubs got Edmonds, I wrote comparing it to the Bulls acquiring Dennis Rodman. The guy played a key role for years in a heated regional rivalry (Detroit Pistons) and now we are being asked to accept him as our own. Then, like now with Edmonds, I felt like the onus was on the player to prove his worthiness before I truly accept him. Edmonds has been steadily building a case since joining the Cubs but today, for me, pushed him over the top. He even got a curtain call from the Wrigley faithful following his second HR today.  So, welcome to the Cubs, Jimmy Ballgame!