Marquis de Sad

Wildly overreacting to any single game result is usually my dad's bailiwick, but the results against the Marlins are really starting to bother me. And yes, I know that the magic number was reduced to three tonight, and yes, I know that even being swept by the Marlins won't be that big a deal if we can take two of three against a Dunn-and-Griffey-less Reds team. But yes, it bothers me rather substantially that the Cubs manage to be this bad against the Marlins. That's now nine consecutive losses, and while I'll buy the first seven - the first four coming during the awful '06 season and 5-7 coming at the apex of the late May meltdown this year - the last two have been pretty awful. Lilly and Marquis both looked mediocre at best, not a good precedent coming down the stretch. (Marquis' last two starts: 7.2 IP, 11 ER.) And we're now counting on Steve Trachsel to save a game in this series. Wonderful.

The Marlins, if you didn't know, have the worst pitching staff in the National League. Their team ERA is 4.97. Opponents hit .285 against them. And yeah, they're better at home, but not by much - it's still 4.85 and .280, both of which are not very good numbers.

The Marlins' team ERA against the Cubs this year? 2.60. It's embarrassing.

Mercifully, the extended comparison to the 2004 end-of-season flop that I was going to write in this space was staved off by St. Louis managing to take a game from the Brewers, dropping the Cubs' magic number to 3 without them having to do anything so complicated as win a game. This leaves the division lead at 2 games with four to play. All of Milwaukee's four are against San Diego, a team fighting for its life, playoff-wise, so that's a bonus. Of course, Milwaukee doesn't have to face Jake Peavy and there's no way the Padres can outslug the Brewers. But the odds are against a four-game sweep by Milwaukee, meaning that winning a mere two of the remaining four games should be enough to get the Cubs into the playoffs.

On the cautious optimism scale, I'd say right now I'm at a 4, with a 10 being "dancing in the streets" and a 1 being "post-game 6, 2003 NLCS."