A Mid-Summer's Night Conundrum

It is halfway through the 2009 Major League Baseball season and the Chicago Cubs are 3.5 games back from the N.L. Central leading St. Louis Cardinals. The bright side here is that the Cubs are in easy striking distance of a third straight division title; however, no one saw this season going like this.

The Cubs were the heavy favorites to run away with the N.L. central at the start of the year (see my season preview). They had the pitching, the hitting, 2 straight division titles and a very weak division. Just another lesson to us Cubs fans that nothing is a sure thing. With that said here is a Mid-Season review and a preview of what is to come for the Northsiders

1. INJURIES

If someone decides to write a book about this club, I am pretty sure this would be the biggest chapter. The original opening day starting lineup (including the 5 starting pitchers and entire bullpen) has been completely healthy for a total of two games. 2!! No team will be as advertised when that is the case. The second half of the season begins today with Aramis Ramirez and Rich Harden back in the lineup, but Ryan Dempster and Geovany Soto still sidelined with injuries. If this team has any hope of winning the division, everyone has to get healthy and stay healthy.

2. Bring some Lumber, PLEASE!

Where are the runs?? This is a team that lead the majors last year in runs scored with 855 (5.3 Runs/game). At the halfway point, the Cubs are currently 15th in runs scored with 355 (4.1 Runs/game). That is more than a full run less per game. I believe in the mantra of pitching wins championships as much as anyone, but hitting gets you to the postseason. Over a 162 game span, pitching will fluctuate, but between eight guys a game, a team should consistently be scoring runs. The addition of Aramis off the DL should help, but something is not clicking right. I do not see the Cubs being major players in the trade market, so the hitting is going to have to come from within. Let's score some runs!

3. The Million Dollar Questions

And what I mean by that is, what do you do about your high priced players? Milton Bradley, Kosuke Fukudome and even Alfonso Soriano are struggling, but are the investment of the franchise. While Jake Fox, Micah Hoffpauir and Sam Fuld have added a nice spark to the lineup for nothing more than minor league dollars. So what does Lou do? I think he needs to bench some of these contracts and let the kids play a little. Personally, I am fine with a Fox, Fuld, Hoffpauir outfield. At least when they hit a soft groundball or a lazy fly, they hustle their asses off to first base. I want to see a message sent that says, "If you don't want play hard, then you won't play." Despite the big money, stars hate sitting on the bench and not getting the glory. Just check out rivals to the south. Tony La Russa gets the most out of every player he is given. And when asked how he keeps such discipline on his teams by John Miller of ESPN, he replied, "It's pretty simple. I don't have a lot of rules, but the ones I have I enforce. If you don't play hard, you don't play." Sounds logical to me....

4. Take it one series at a time

The Cubs have a lot of expectations for this year. Coming off a second straight division championship with that lingering World Series-less streak, the pressure is always high on the Northside. The Cubs need to win one series at a time. If they concentrate on winning each 3- and 4-game set, they will be right back where they were last year (meaning the playoffs, not in Dodger Hell). This team is still loaded with talent and they played awful baseball in the first half of the season. Still, they are only 3.5 games back of first. I expect to see the Cubs hoisting another division crown when this is all said and done.

On a side note: I am worried about St.Louis pursuing the Holiday talent (Roy Halladay and Matt Holliday), so keep an eye on that and hope they are not wearing Cardinal red come August. I already had to deal with Mark DeRosa donning that insidious jersey and could not take anymore talent heading that way.

Prediction: Cubs win the N.L. Central with a 89-73 record.