Well said Gramps

Not only are we in first, but the white sox are 0.5 games ahead of Kansas City for last place in the AL Central. What a wonderfully quick fall from the top

Well said Gramps.

AMEN GRAMPS. We are in first place in August right??????????????????????????

Aaron,

Enjoy this! First place, team is playing good baseball and life is good! You sound like many of the newspaper columnists when you bring up all the negative stuff.

Isn't this what we as Cubs fans want? I prefer to look at the positive side and now that we are in first place, I am hoping we continue to build our lead. Jeez, take it a day at a time. Let's not worry about what has happened or what is to happen. ENJOY IT!!! GO CUBS!!!!

May I remind you both that a 83 win team won the WS last year. They did that because they got streaky, this team has been streaky, and if we get streaky going into October...Well, lets not get ahead of myself, but yall get the picture.

Hey my post is longer than yours! It is contagious!

let me know what you think.

I understand your frustration Aaron, but understand that you are a tough guy to impress! Lol! Oddly I feel like you, we are not the best team...but we were for over a month and we are battling to continue an unfamiliar trend of wining baseball. I know this Philadelphia team has lost a couple of good players [Utley/Victorino] but this team came to Wrigley being the hottest team in the NL with serious momentum and yet we neutralized them. I know they are missing pieces but they are still very scary offensively. Just watch the Brewers take them these next 3 days. A trade would be [and would have been] very good but I find it unlikely to happen.

Let’s at least give the team what they have so far:

1-Turned the works of a horrible season into possibly a great one.

2-Developed a winning attitude and certainly some resilience.

3-Seriously improved the bullpen [since opening day]

4-Seriously improved with Runners in scoring Position

5-Seriously improved winning 1 run games

6-Surprisingly learning to work our way up in ballgames that we are loosing by the count of more than 3 runs. [That never happened last year]

7-almost never get blown out [ most of the games we get a real shot at winning]

8-Charged from 4th to 1st in 7 weeks

9-Did I mention that we are in 1st place.

Any way, I believe we are a long way from that World Series but don’t tell me that our chances are a lot more realistic right now compared to what we had in May. We are not the ones stumbling…those are the Brewers. They have consistently declined while we have done the exact opposite. Granted that we still need to get a LOT better but the trend indicates that we have been improving at a steady pace.

BTW: 8-5 against .500+ teams is not great, but not bad either. Like I still mourn those stupid losses to the Rangers and Pirates [unacceptable] we would be 11 over .500

Quote:

I don’t want a pennant, I want a ring!

_Steinbrenner

Would have been nice to have Woody in the top of the 9th today. Maybe we still would have had a fighting chance going into the bottom of the inning....

Guys,

Here's a little thought....I think we're all pretty much in a little Cubbie bubble where we think our team is the greatest---well, maybe not, but that we can win in the playoffs if we get there...Well, I was just thinking about that myself, and how I bought into the Cubs whole recent success---but it's been against sub .500 teams, and in nearly 2 months, we've only played 4 winning teams---Arizona, Colorado, and Philly, and Milwaukee, and were 8-5, which isn't that great. Not to mention, they've been pretty bad against teams like Pittsburgh and the Texas Rangers....It doesn't exactly impress me, and the fact that we didn't get anyone but Jason Kendall in a trade essentially for Michael Barrett---really doesn't help us at all. Throw in the fact that Marquis, Hill, Lilly, and Marshall have been shelled recently, and the future doesn't exactly look bright for us.

So I pose this question...what happens if they continue to struggle? Where do we turn? In September, we can only bring up 40 man roster players, and the only starters we have to choose from are Mateo, Gallagher, Guzman, and Samardzija---and Guzman's injured and Samardzija ain't gonna happen. When Wood comes back, I'd probably say one of Dopirak or Cotts could be DFA, or maybe Blanco could be transferred to the 60 day retroactive to allow a cushion until September....who knows?

I'd hope this forces Hendry's hand to make a trade...I wonder what the chances of landing Dunn would be, or possibly a Greinke. I once heard that most GM's put half the team on waivers in August to allow for flexibility, so who knows?