And so the post-season begins, for us tonight at (local time) 9:00. Amazingly, a bunch of my fellow Chicagoeans have been endlessly bitching about this. Well, boody-hoody-hoo. Man, we’re not talking about games starting at midnight here. And they could have been playing in the afternoons, when we are all at work. (Although I will miss Saturday’s game because of the Cosby concert I’m going to.)
Our chances are pretty good this round. The Diamondbacks have no offense, and while a lot of weight is being put on staff ace Carlos Zambrano for this game, unless he really sucks, our bats are what we should be relying on. The fact is, this is a hell of a line-up:
LF Alfonso Soriano
SS Ryan Theriot
1B Derrek Lee
RF Cliff Floyd
3B Aramis Ramirez
2B Mark DeRosa
CF Jacque Jones
C Geovany Soto
P Carlos Zambrano
Even Zambrano is a hitting threat. Unless I miss my guess, we hit better at *every single* position than Arizona. However, the DBs have a genuine ace pitcher on the mound tonight, so we’ll see. The good news is, if we can beat him, we’ve pretty much got the entire series in the bag. The fall-off of Arizona’s pitching talent after him is fairly severe.
Having Soto in as catcher is a big plus. He hits a *lot* better than Jason Kendall, the veteran journeyman we picked up a while ago, and is also hands down better than him defensively. And you know the fetid ghosts of former manager and complete fraud Dusty Baker are exorcised when a talented kid plays over an obviously inferior veteran. Were Baker still here, Kendall would be playing because, in a phrase we heard all too much for four dour years, “He’s earned it.” Not ‘earned’ it as in having actually played better, but ‘earned’ it solely in terms of being a veteran. None of that crap, thank goodness, under Sweet Lou Pinella.
The big fear is wondering what Cubs teams shows up. We’ve got two; one really bad, and one really good. In one week we scored 30 runs to sweep a series, and then got swept by a really bad team immediately thereafter. So who knows? However, the Cubs (believe it or not) had the best record in the National League after June 23rd, and on paper have more talent than the Diamondbacks, and also finally have a pretty good manager.
And so, my beloved Cubs, hear my plea: For the love of Pete, don’t fuck this up.
