Cubs take three of four in San Diego

With the Cubs' win on Sunday and the D-Backs' loss the Cubs now sit alone atop the NL Wild Card Standings. A very impressive feat, all things considered, though if you would have told me in April that at this point of the season the Cubs would be leading the Wild Card I would have said, "Wait, you mean they're not leading the NL Central?!".

Despite the fact that the Cubs have won nine of ten overall and three of four games in San Diego, who had the best home record in baseball and were scorching hot coming into the series, I'm still not convinced the Cubs can win the Wild Card. Apparantly, Carlos Zambrano doesn't agree with me. He still believes the Cubs will win the Central. If it was any other player I would have have said thay were only saying such things for the fans' sake, but coming from Carlos, I'm pretty sure he meant what he said. Which is good, because you love to have that attitude in your star pitcher, but it's not very realistic.

Eventually, you know the Cubs are going to cool off. Eventually, you know Derrek Lee is going to wake up from his oh so wonderful dream. When that happens, the domino effect will take place. Neifi! will then remember that he was only meant to be a backup and will start playing as such, Maddux will start to show his age as the season progresses, the Cubs' young guns in the bullpen will suddenly develop the Hawkins Syndrome, and the team will play like they did in the last ten games of 2004.

And in a sort of twisted way, I am sort of hoping that that day comes soon. That way, I can finally give up on 2005 which has given me so many headaches and start looking forward to next season. Because even as I write this very negative post, there is a small...thing, in the back of my brain that somehow still believes that the Cubs will still be playing come October. That this is not just a little winning streak, but just a good team playing well, that Derrek Lee win continue to carry the team offensively, that Carlos Zambrano will avoid getting hurt. I believe people call this horrible thing optimism. Right now it's just a small dot hidden deep inside my brain, but it's starting to grow and grow with each Cub win. It's starting to scare me.

But seriously folks, I just don't think this team has what it takes to win. So far we've had a very easy schedule for the most part. The only winning teams we've faced are St. Louis in a short two game series, the White Sox who took two out of three, the Dodgers who were slumping horribly when we ran into them, and the Padres. So the only good team we've beaten so far is San Diego, and people like will point out that in that series we faced a rookie and a guy who lost 19 games a year ago and the game we lost was when we faced one of the Padres two best pitchers. As you all know by now, the schedule only gets tougher as we move deeper into June. Our beloved Cubbies will go up against the likes of the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Marlins, Yankees, Brewers, and White Sox. In that order.

That stretch will be the Cubs' first real test. If they can come out of that with a winning record, I will happily eat my words and apologize for ever doubting them.