Dust off the brooms

After suffering through a 4-9 stretch, the Cubs got themselves right in a big way this weekend with a sweep, and against the Diamondbacks, who hold the best record in the NL, no less. In the process they got good outings from Ted Lilly and Ryan Dempster and a decent outing from Sean Gallagher, who pitched in place of Carlos Zambrano on Sunday because of the rain delayed start. Gallagher will apparently be moved to the rotation in place of Jon Lieber, who got absolutely rocked against the Reds last week, allowing 4 home runs in one inning, and lasting just 2 innings total. I suspect, however, that Rich Hill will be called back up before too long, as he has pitched well in his first 2 starts at AAA. Alfonso Soriano may be starting to heat up again after a 4-for-5 performance on Saturday, a game which also saw Kosuke Fukudome pick up his 2nd homer. Scott Eyre also made his '08 debut in the majors after a bunch of rehab outings, and managed to pick up the win pitching a scoreless inning.

There are a couple of things to still be concerned about. The Cubs are still running themselves out of some innings, notably on Saturday when they had two runners called out at the plate.
In one case, Reed Johnson was tagging up on a fly ball to right and was thrown out by an absolutely perfect throw from Justin Upton. With a lot of right fielders, that probably would've been a good send. Less forgivable was a gaffe by a Aramis Ramirez, who was on third when a ball was hit to short, held up initially, but then tried to make it towards home and was thrown out easily after the put-out was made at first. Failing to commit one way or the other on baserunning plays is something that has gotten the Cubs in trouble on a few occasions in recent years, and Aramis individually has not been known as a fantastic baserunner. It would be nice to see this corrected, but as long Aramis and others are swinging the bat as they are, they'll likely usually make up for it.

After a fantastic start, Reed Johnson has come back to earth somewhat, (though he hit his first home run of the year yesterday in the form of a 2-run shot that tied the game 4-4) and is now hitting .255 with an OPS of .662. Johnson has been playing almost everyday, and I think its time to start playing Felix Pie consistently against rightys and save Johnson for leftys. Pie's stats aren't anything to write home about currently, but he's currently not getting enough at-bats to get better. If Lou doesn't feel comfortable playing him more than he is now, I think he has to be sent back down to AAA where he can start every day. Next up is a 4 game set against the Padres, who have been abysmal as of late, showing almost no offense to speak of. Barring some unforeseen incident, Greg Maddux will start Thursday's game after winning his 350th career game in his last start.

Update:

Okay, the Padres offense is actually worse than I first thought it was. They're last in the league in runs, and by a pretty good margin, as well as last in average, OBP, and slugging.

Stat
Cubs
Padres
Runs
5.70
3.37
Avg
.281
.231
OBP
.371
.305
Slg
.438
.345