We're a little over half way through the baseball season, and I've been very remiss in my update on the status of my favorite team, the Chicago Cubs. And there's one very good reason why; they stink. They've been bad on an almost epic scale, and may post the worst record in franchise history. For the first few months of the season they were no fun to watch, as the offense struggled, the pitching was a roller coaster ride of agony, and Starlin Castro and Bryan LaHair were the only two bright spots on the team. The last few weeks, however, have seen an uptick in both the teams intensity and record, and I'd like to place all that on rookie Anthony Rizzo, but the truth is just about everyone on the team is performing better. Except LaHair, of course. Bryan, a 29 year old journeyman who's getting his first real chance to start in the big leagues (I think he played for the Hebrew Oilers a couple seasons ago) started out on fire, earning a trip to the All-Star game and kudos in the national press. But of course he's come back to earth recently, and I'm about to get a Kickstarter campaign going to hire Glenn Close to wear a white dress and stand up during his next at bat. Knock the cover off the ball, kid.
Rizzo, the much-heralded rookie who came over in an off-season trade with San Diego, has been pretty amazing in his first few weeks as a Cub, although I dread the inevitable "Rizzo The Rat" headlines in the Sun Times when he signs with the Mets as a free agent in 2018.
It's nice to see Ryan Dempster on a contract/trade me to a contender drive, putting up 27 consecutive scoreless innings over his last few outings. I'll miss that guy when he's gone, he's a class act, plus his daughter was born on the same day as my son, so it'll be real cute when they get married in 20 years. I'm setting up a play date for the off-season.
New manager Dale Sveum is...well, it's hard to tell what he is. He's been handed a bunch of fringe-y players, and you'd like to think he's getting the best out of them, but with a .388 winning percentage it's hard to make that claim. Still, he hasn't snapped and killed anybody in the dugout yet, so good on him.
I've got my stomach all tied up in knots just thinking about this crap, so I'm going to go snort some Valium and try to stay positive about the second half of the season. At least they're not in last place.
