Mama Said There'd be Days Like These

The Cubs lost their 4th straight last night in 11 innings by a 9-7 score at home to the Astros. The 4 game losing streak ties their longest for the season. I haven't been paying much attention to sports radio as of late, but I'm going to venture a guess and say that a lot of Cubs fans are having Platoon style flashbacks of 1969 and are ready to jump off of a bridge. Meanwhile, however, the Brewers-- also losers in extra innings to the Mets last night--haven't really taken advantage of the Cubs' skid and still sit 4 1/2 back in the division. The Brewers themselves are maintaining a 4.5 game lead in the wild card. As much as people are going to play up the CUBS: Completely Useless by September and billy goat curse stuff, it really is nigh impossible for the Cubs to miss the playoffs. For the rest of the regular season there's no cause for alarm. Quote that. Bookmark that. Whatever. I'm quite confident in that.

Of actual cause for concern may be the health of Carlos Zambrano, who left after 5 innings and 86 pitches last night. Z had already been pushed back two days on what was initially just called a tired arm, but now it appears that a real physical problem is there. Zambrano was to see the doctor today, and to my knowledge there hasn't been any news yet on his prognosis. Lou, as you might expect, has been pretty matter-of-fact about it, but that's likely to do little to ease the worry of neurotic Cubs fans everywhere. As amazing as their offense has been, the prospect of a playoff rotation of Zambrano/Harden/Dempster or some combination thereof is perhaps the best thing the Cubs have going for them heading into the postseason. If Zambrano's injury is serious, it would certainly make the road to the World Series significantly tougher.

Bob Howry was awful last night, facing five batters and retiring none of them. He left several pitches out over the plate that got absolutely smoked into the outfield. The outing ballooned his ERA to 5.63, and its an even worse 8.50 after the All-Star break. Michael Wuertz, who was demoted earlier in the year, is back up with the September call-ups and has already pitched twice. I would personally much rather see Wuertz on the playoff roster than Howry, who just doesn't seem to have it this year.

Amidst the doom and gloom (at least relative to how the rest of the Cubs' best season since at least 1984 has gone to this point) there are still some individual guys performing well. Mark DeRosa homered again and got his 80th RBI on the year, and Geovany Soto homered as part of a 3-hit game as he continues to solidify his Rookie of the Year resume.