Morning Walk-thru - Hey! Hey!

What the hell is going on here?...The Cubs finally gave Ted Lily (2.18 ERA) some support yesterday and beat the Brew Crew 9-3. The win leaves Chicago at 8-13, good enough for last place in the NL Central and the second worst record in the National League. But why have they been so bad thus far?

I ask because the Yun' Ball Coach brought up this interesting stat via email: the Cubs have actually scored more runs (97) then they've allowed (84). The only other team in the division that can make that claim is Milwaukee and they're in first place, but their run differential is a paltry one, while the Cubs have scored the second most runs in the division and given up the second fewest.

And they're in last place.

The statistical oddities continue. Below are the Cubs offensive rankings going in to yesterday's action (NL rank, Central rank):

H (2nd, 1st), 2B (1st, 1st), HR (9th, 4th), RBI (6th, 2nd), TB (4th, 2nd), BB (13th, 5th), SO (5th, 1st), OBP (9th, 2nd), AVG (3rd, T-1st).

Based on those stats, it's hard to see how the Cubs are in the Central cellar. In three of the categories (H, 2B, AVG) they're leading the league and in three of the other "good" ones they're trailing only Milwaukee. Of course, they're leading the division in strike outs and are second worst in walks, but even with that, they're still one off the lead in OBP.

Must be the pitching. Let's look at some of those numbers:

ERA (6th, 2nd), R (7th, T-2nd), HR (15th, 6th), BB (11th, 6th), SO (1st, 1st), WHIP (3rd, 2nd), AVG (2nd, 1st), OBA (3rd, 2nd), K/9 (1st, 1st), H/9 (2nd, 1st)

.

The bad stats here are pretty glaring, home runs and walks, but in every other category the Cubs are right in the mix (and nowhere near the worst team in the Central.) So, to ask the titular question, what the hell? Why aren't the Cubs at least .500?

I really don't know. I guess it comes down to the old playoff cliche: timely pitching and timely hitting. Over the long run they have been pretty good, but in the impact stats HRs and BBs they're struggling both offensively and defensively.

On one hand, this could be an encouraging sign. Eventually, these stats will have to show up in the won-loss ledger, right?

On the other, it really depresses me as it confirms something I've long suspected, the Cubs are bad because they're the Cubs.

Let's play two, dominate 90% of the statistical categories that matter, and lose them both.

WarrNuggs can't complete their waltz across Texas...After being shocked on their home floors in the respective Game Ones, San Antonio and Dallas both responded with victories.

Game Two is always the most important game in any seven-game series. It's the fan's first chance to see how players, coaches and teams respond to the information gathered from the first game, and, unfortunately for me and anyone else hoping for an upset, it went pretty much by the book.

Golden State and Denver both looked impressive in small spurts, but Dallas and San Antonio each did what they had to do. Conventional wisdom says that if you're the road team all you hope for is a split, but it still feels like the Texas heavyweights have things under control.

What fun is that?

I can't wait to read about this on 38pitches.com...Orioles broadcaster, Gary Thorne, said during last night's game that Doug Mirabelli had told him that Curt Schilling's bloody sock from the 2004 ALCS was a fake. Painted for publicity not bloodied and sodden with shear courage.

Of course, every Red Sox representative scoffed at the notion. Mirabelli called Thorne an (expletive). Theo used an (expletive). Schilling will probably never speak to a media member again.

But the solution seems pretty simple. Pull the sock out of the HOF and do some tests. This will never happen, however. The stakes are too high. The sock is part of baseball lore now, a mythic talisman commemorating the end of the Curse. What would happen if it was a fake?

Interested to see how this plays out.

Morning Walk-thru - Good 4 Evil 2

Denver does San Antonio...The Nuggets beat San Antonio at home last night, to take a 1-0 lead in the opening round playoff series. The Nuggets! In San Antonio!

Denver might actually be able to make some noise this spring. They have one of the best scorers in the game in Anthony and perhaps the toughest player of the modern era in Iverson. (That's more than the Lakers can say. They have the scoring part and little else.)

Both of the Nuggets stars showed up big on Sunday with Melo putting up 31 and the Answer 30. Each of them were perfect from the free throw line.

The only thing I can see holding the Nuggets back is George Karl. Is it too late for Phil Jackson to join the Nuggets? That's basically what he does right?

With or without Jackson, the Nuggets are officially my rooting interest in the West and I'll root, root, root for the Bull-ies in the East.

Don Nelson Does Dallas...And if one playoff upset wasn't enough, Golden State beat top-seeded Dallas in one of the toughest places to play in the league. Baron Davis had 33 pts, 14 rebs, and 8 assts, and Mark Cuban had one giant puss on his face (to borrow from The Sopranos). The difference here is, as opposed to the Nuggets, that the Warrior have no chance of beating Dalls in a seven game series.

In fact, I'll be shocked if this one doesn't end up 4-1 Mavericks.

Dice-K still mortal, but that's good enough...While we're still waiting for Matsuzaka to display the sake-esque mind bending powers we all know he has, he did beat the Yankees in his first ever start in the rivalry, scooping up the first sweep of the Bronx Bombers in Fenway in 17 years.

It took the long ball, including back to back to back to back homers from Ramirez, Drew, Lowell and Varitek, but Boston completed their third straight come back win in the series. I don't want to read too much into one late-April series, but it was nice to feel like no matter what happened, the Sawx were going to find a way to get it done.

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised, however, considering the current state of the Yanks. It's been a while since I've watched New York and had no idea who three or four of the players were. They trotted out a slew of average white guys with average white guy names (Colter Bean, Chase Wright, Josh Phelps), even throwing Andy Pettite in relief after he'd just thrown on Friday. They'll be back, but for now, on this rivalry weekend representing the eternal struggle between heaven and hell, it's White Hates 4 Black Hats 2, because...

The Cubs lost .667 of the games they played this weekend...With the wind blowing out yesterday, the Cubs fell in the 10th to St. Louis and dropped 2 of 3 to the epitome of evil at Wrigley Field. The fact that Chicago even got to the 10th is a minor miracle considering they went down two in the top of 9th, then lucked into two runs on a wind-aided fluke single from Mark DeRosa. Somehow the Cardinals didn't put the game away until the 10th as the Cubs bullpen, one of the only consistent areas of success for the Cubs thus far, allowed the lead-off man to reach in the 8th, 9th and 10th innings.

That eventually catches up to you. You can't give Albert Pujols too many opportunities to be Albert Pujols and he finally burned Ryan Dempster with a three-run shot to put it out of reach.

Despite all that, I don't feel too bad about the Cubs after this weekend. They've been bad, but if they can pick up a couple of wins against the Brewers they'll have survived April. Two wins and they're knocking on the door for second in the division.

This is the most optimistic I've been following a Cubs loss--to the Cardinals no less--in quite some time and I don't have a reson for that. Maybe I'm delusional.

Deep thoughts...You know what's better than seeing this guy score a 62-meter goal(that's 200+ feet, America) in the Bundesliga? German, that's what. Makes this video at least four times better.



Photo: Getty Images