Keep Rollin' Along

Roughly 1/4 of the way through the season, the Cubs find themselves 10 games over .500 (they were 8 games over .500 for all of 2007), in first place in the NL central, and leading the NL in batting average and on-base percentage. After winning 3 of 4 against a fairly awful Padres team, the Cubs won 2 of 3 over the weekend against another bad (though recently hot) Pirates team. Both series were played at Wrigley. The question then becomes, can the Cubs keep going at this pace (if I do the math right, they're on pace to go 99-63) for the entire season, or is this record a by-product of the fact that they've played 27 of 44 games at home, 9 games against the Pirates, and 6 against the Reds? The series that starts tonight may help to answer that question, as the Cubs head down to Houston to play the Astros. Unlike the Cubs, the Astros have spent the bulk of the first 2 months of the '08 season on the road, and even though they don't appear to be as good as the Cubs on paper, their record is only 2 1/2 games worse. They're read hot at the moment, going 12-4 thus far in May. Lance Berkman is quietly (at least I haven't seen him getting that much national attention) hitting .399 with 16 HRs and 44 RBIs, which puts him extremely close to being the NL leader in all 3 triple crown stats (Chipper Jones' .410 average beats him there). Again though, the Cubs would seem to be clearly better on paper, and so a series win in Houston to assert this fact might go a long way.

Concerns about Alfonso Soriano have quieted lately, as Soriano has hit nearly .400 since coming back, is now tied for the team lead in home runs with 10, and managed to put together a 5-for-5, 2 home run performance in a LOSS on Saturday. While I have been and remain critical of Soriano's patience at the plate and still don't want him leading off, its clear that the negative sentiment piled onto him earlier in the year was overblown.

Kerry Wood picked up his 10th save yesterday, and has now appeared in 22 games, equal to the amount of games he appeared in last year. It's good to see Kerry be able to stay on the field, and be fairly effective at the same time.