Cubs hanging in there
The Cubs beat the Cardinals tonight for the second consecutive night, after having lost eight of their previous nine games. It was a pretty horrible stretch, and it was really starting to piss me off on Tuesday night, but all in all I can't complain too much. The lead was and still is too big for me to get too worked up over a few (albeit miserable) losses. (Thank you, Brewers!) Barring a stretch of sub-.200 ball to close the season, the Cubs will make the playoffs. Would I prefer that the Cubs pull their heads out of their collective asses? Sure. We all would. But they're gonna make it. What happens when they get there is another story.
Now, the glass-half-full crowd suggests that this stretch of lousy play is normal. Check out this great post from Al at BleedCubbieBlue. It shows how each of the last seven World Series winners all had a stretch of lousy, sometimes horrendous, play in the month of September before ultimately winning it all. (Including the 2005 White Sox, who I mentioned in my last post.)
The seesawing teams is actually starting to become a staple of every MLB season, thanks to the Wild Card. Teams coming, teams going; happens every September. Look at Houston this year (and 2005 for that matter). Left for dead, they went on incredibly winning streaks to finish the season. Last year's Rockies, too. Though, also note that neither team actually won the World Series; they were too spent and simply ran out of gas in October. Maybe the Cubs will be one of the "lousy September" teams that barely hung on before getting hot at the right time in October. One can dream, can't he?
Of course, you could also be the 2007 Mets, who blew a 7 game lead with 17 to play. That's what we're trying to avoid here. We don't need another 1969 on our hands.
This is all to say I don't know what the hell's going to happen. All I know is the magic number is 11 and the Brewers just keep on losing. I'm just going to cross my fingers and go on with my life.
EAMUS CATULI