At the start of the season the Chicago Cubs were, to coin a Britiah phrase, bloody awful. Now they are the hottest team in the Major Leagues.Although the 2007 Major League Baseball season will always be remembered for the sight of two teammates fighting each other in their own dugout, the Chicago Cubs are suddenly beating other teams up in the National League Central.
As the weather has got hotter, so have the Cubbies, who now lie just three games behind the Millwaukee Brewers in the race for the NL Central title.
In the last 20 games, the Cubs have won 16 of them, and have won four in a row since the All-Star break.
Aramis Ramirez is hitting .350 so far in the month of July, dropping in 14 hits and hitting 11 RBIs. And Alfonso Soriano, who was signed to a monster contract before the start of the 2007 season, is clubbing the ball, with 15 hits and 10 runs plated. Not only that, but his centerfield play is becoming less of an adventure – which is nice, if you’re a Cubbies fan.
And Derek Lee- who recently overcame a 126 at-bat attack of the home run `yips’, hit a three-run bomb to desert his curse. He’s hitting .335 for the season, by the way, and he continues to be one of the league’s most frighteningly good hitters.
The pitching – which seemed to have been a curse for the Cubs in the last few years (Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, anyone?) – is pretty good during this run of form, too. Carlos Zambrano, who nursed a no-hitter against the Padres in June until the eighth inning, has conceded four earned runs in three starts so far in July, while Ted Lilly, who had a rocky April, May and June, has suddenly righted himself, going 5-1 in his last six starts, with a 1.77 ERA in the month of July. And in the bullpen, Bob Howry’s doing a sterling job at closer, as Ryan Dempster (16 saves), attempts to recover from a strained oblique muscle.
It seems to be no coincidence that they’ve gone on this run since ridding themselves of the troublesome priest (sorry, catcher), that is Michael Barrett, who they traded away to San Diego on June 20th. Barratt managed to get in constant arguments with his pitchers – as well as the well-documented contretemps with Zambrano at the start of June. They’ve since signed Jason Kendall, who’s hitting a miserable .222 this season but might not get thumped by his own pitchers. It’s nice having an easy-going catcher, right?
If the ownership situation gets sorted – Mark Cuban, the enfant terrible of the NBA owners club – then the smart money’s on the Cubs making a postseason appearance.
Alex Ferguson’s blog is http://viewfromnorthamerica.blogspot.com