Cubs Leveling Off

Well, you had to know that the Ted Lilly start was going to signal the end of the Cubs' torrid bout of hitting, but they came out this afternoon and bounced back to beat the Pirates without a whole lot of run support. Lilly is awful and Jon Lieber, despite serving up a Ken Griffey Jr. homer yesterday, should be moving into the starting rotation to take his place. Rich Hill, the pitcher most likely to be looking at Lieber over his shoulder, gave up only one run today despite letting a lot of Pirates reach base. Cubs are now a game back of St. Louis, who can't start getting bitten by the injury bug early enough for this Cubs fan's liking.

Derek Lee struggled for the second straight game as a six-game hitting streak came to an end after looking like Ted Williams out there for a little while. Reed Johnson has stepped into the roll of hit-machine over the past two. He's looking like he'll be a great fit for the Cubs. He's got that old-school air of effort in everything he does. Now if he'd only shave that stupid beard. Felix Pie is going to have to find some other way to get into the lineup besides mopping up in the late innings for Johnson. He didn't even get an at-bat today and the point of his demotion to the bench was supposed to be for him to improve his hitting. I hope that practice time trying to shorten his swing is paying off. Weird is the only word to describe Mark DeRosa's approach to left field, with his circling and shuffling underneath the ball like a cartoon character before finally making the catch and eliciting a collective gasp of relief from the Wrigley crowd. But he's getting the job done. Mike Fontenot's has been doing a solid job at second and, yesterday notwithstanding, hitting pretty well too. Eric Patterson stepped in at second today. Lou does like to shift things around. I just hope he can shift Pie in somewhere where he can get some ABs.

Kerry Wood is looking better as a closer every time out. That is definitely encouraging. Hopefully he'll stay healthy. Carlos Marmol threw 40 pitches today in two innings and is becoming an imposing middle reliever. Tomorrow Jason Marquis will try once more to justify his whining to get into this year's rotation against Tom Gorzelanny. Let's see if Lee can get off the schnide.

Go Cubs!