Hurricane Ike Good For Cubs!
by Godfrey Logan
Sep 16 2008

With a couple pitching gems against the Astros are the Cubs really saying, "Home sweet, Milwaukee?"

After playing two games in Milwaukee sweeping both games with a no hitter by pitcher Carlos Zambrano and a one hitter by Ted Lilly the Cubs have at least an 8 game lead in the division, it can be said that Hurricane Ike was “very very good” for the Cubs taking a cue from former Cub Sammy Sosa. Before the storm with their offense in the tank all of the pressure had been put on the pitching staff to carry them. While a series win is a series win, 2 of 3 over St. Louis in Missouri and winning series has been their motto since the all star break, Cub nation has been questioning keeping Derrick Lee in the three spot. Sweet Lou has proven what Dusty Baker had proven before him as a manager of the Cubs, regardless of your managing reputation and history, stars will always get star treatment. Considering the fact that Lee leads the national league if not all of baseball in grounding into double plays he remains in the three spot. While he did hit a homerun in Mondays game against the Astros he still has less homeruns than rookie catcher Giovanni Soto finally hitting the 20 homerun plateau on Monday. For a month or more Lee didn’t have an extra base hit and his batting average dipped below .300. Another star getting star treatment but frustrates the hell out of Cub fans is lead off hitter Alfonso Soriano. He’s proved in the past two seasons that he isn’t willing to try hitting in another spot in the lineup so by default he remains in the top slot where he has produced but has never seen a pitch he didn’t like. He’s gone away from what worked for him when he came off his second stint on the dl just after the all star break when he started the second half red hot. What maybe happening is these two stars have been pressing while losing nine out of ten games including a sweep at Wrigley by the same Astros they swept the two game series from. It is said that the playoffs are a whole different story from the regular season but Cub nation would rather see positives from their stars going into the post season. For the last two seasons it has been the role players that have carried the team. The lower half of the lineup while the top of the lineup has had its struggles. There is less pressure going into this post season than last year when the Cubs were swept by Arizona in the first round. Some would say how can that be when a team has not won a World Series in nearly 100 years. But when your number to win the division is down to single digits a team can relax a bit before the playoffs start while other teams are killing themselves just to make it. While Cub fans see some positives in the two game sweep of the Astros they want their stars to show they can be the strength of this team without relying on the pitching staff to do all the work.

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