Sometimes things just go your way

The Cubs finished their west coast road swing against the Dodgers and Padres 4-3, and won their first game back at home against the Braves last night. Ted Lilly recovered after a rough 1st inning to get his 6th win, and the still-best-in-the-NL Cubs offense put up 10 more runs. The best news for the Cubs as far as their playoff chances are concerned may actually be what's happening with St. Louis. The Cardinals are currently the only team reasonably close to the Cubs at 2 1/2 games back (next is the Brewers at 7 1/2 back), and while it certainly seemed as if they were overachieving when they got off to a hot start, they're still 12 over .500 about 40% of the way through the season. If the Cardinals are going to fall of though, this may be the stretch in which it happens. Their top 2 pitchers in terms of ERA, Adam Wainwright and Todd Wellemeyer, have both missed starts with injury, although Wellemeyer's injury isn't believed to be serious at the moment. A much bigger blow may have happened last night, when Albert Pujols left after sustaining a calf injury running out of the box that was described as "pretty bad." The next team after the Cardinals is the Brewers at 33-31, who have not hit nearly as well as expected (they're currently 14th in the NL in batting average and OBP). Rickie Weeks is hitting .210, J.J. Hardy's hitting .242, and Prince Fielder has a good but not great OPS of .825 with 10 HRs. They'll probably finish out better offensively than they're playing now, but it certainly doesn't look like the team is going to have improved leaps and bounds from last year, as many thought. The Cubs's road to winning the division hasn't had too many bumps in it to this point.