Square one-thirty-nine

Every game up until now, it turns out, has been more or less for naught. As September 6 draws to a close, the Cubs find themselves in exactly the same spot as they were when the season started - deadlocked with the Milwaukee Brewers. (Okay, so on April 1 the Cubs were tied with four other teams too. But since those teams are not tied for first right now, it doesn't matter.) Both teams are 71-68; both have had stretches this season where they were the hottest team in baseball, and both have only managed to settle around .500 despite that. The Cubs led by as many as 2.5 games only a week or so ago; now it is dead even.

Today's game was a bad one to lose. When Soriano hit his second homer, I foolishly thought that the game was won - the bullpen had been strong recently and only needed six outs. Howry gave up a solo home run but had little other trouble, but Dempster couldn't seem to get anyone out, and even if Ethier's home run was a basket job, Ryan seemed headed to his third blown save by hook or by crook. Wuertz's wild pitch was just icing on the cake, not that the Cubs showed any sign of hitting Saito in the bottom of the ninth. This was one where the bottom just dropped out, like that game against the Mets in May. Where the Cubs could have kept a one-game separation in first, they instead dropped into a tie.

With things virtually dead even now (since the annoying Cardinals are just one back; will someone please figure out how to pitch to Rick Ankiel?), let's take a look down the stretch.

Cubs (71-68, tied for first)
Games left: 23
Home/road split: 7/16
Divisional games left: 20
Games left against winning teams: 5

Brewers (71-68, tied for first)
Games left: 23
Home/road split: 10/13
Divisional games left: 15
Games left against winning teams: 11

Cardinals (69-68, one game back)
Games left: 25
Home/road split: 11/14
Divisional games left: 18
Games left against winning teams: 15

At first blush, the schedule seems to favor the Cubs. They have the most road games remaining, but their home/road records this year are virtually identical (38-36 at home, 33-32 away), something that cannot be said of Milwaukee, which plays three more home games down the stretch but still faces the majority of their remaining games on the road, where they are a stunning 26-42 this year. St. Louis is 30-37 on the road. Since all three teams play a majority of road games, it probably helps the Cubs and their +.500 road record most to do so. And of course, the Cubs only play five games against teams with records above .500 - all five of them are against the Cardinals, though, and there's the rub. The Cubs have to play four games at Busch, where St. Louis is 39-31 and where the Cubs have historically not played terribly well (although they're 4-1 there this year). These four games could well decide the division, or at least decide which of the Cardinals and Cubs won't be seriously contending for it. Or they could split the four and we'd be right back where we started.

The Cubs get to play a lot of games against the Central, and in particular the dregs of the Central, with 15 of the 23 games coming against Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Houston. The only problem here? The Cubs' combined record against those three this year is 15-18. Still, if you had to choose who to face down the stretch, you couldn't do a lot better than the Cubs' schedule. The only extra-divisional team is Florida, itself 20 games under .500 (though the Cubs seem to struggle with them). By comparison, the Cardinals play four against the Phillies and Mets, while the Brewers have series against both Atlanta and San Diego - plus the Cardinals and Brewers play each other to start the season's final week, which could be very good for the Cubs, who will be busy playing Florida at the time.

Certainly the Cardinals and Brewers have plenty of games left against bad Central teams too. And they've had more success this year - Milwaukee is 23-14 against the Central's second division, and St. Louis is 24-14. (In fact, the Cubs might well be struggling worse than they are if not for being six games over against their two closest competitors. Oh, the irony.) But the Cubs have the most left, and they have to take advantage of this for a change. The Cubs average just 4.6 runs a game, and the NL Central's bad teams are bad mostly because they can't pitch - the Reds, for example, are third in the NL in runs scored but second-worst in runs allowed. The bats need to come to life, something they've struggled to do for most of the year. Did you know that the Cubs have scored more than six runs in a game just ten times in the second half (and one of those was in a loss)? When you're facing Cincinnati - which averages well over five runs allowed per game - you've gotta put crooked numbers on the board.

So here's what I think the Cubs will have to do to win the division: 15-8.

Milwaukee has 10 home games left and they play .633 ball at home - the good news is that seven of those ten come against St. Louis and San Diego. Still, I can easily see Milwaukee winning three of six on their current road trip, then sweeping the Reds at home (six wins), taking two of three at Houston (eight wins), splitting with Atlanta (ten wins), taking two of three from St. Louis (twelve wins) and splitting with the Padres (14 wins). This means the Cubs will need to go 15-8. (Unless five of those eight losses are to the Cardinals, it shouldn't matter what St. Louis does so long as the Cubs win 15 of their last 23.)

The bigger question, then: can the Cubs win 15 of 23?

It would basically entail winning every series from here on out, which is certainly a possibility given the quality of opposition, but not a lock given the Cubs' tendency to fail to exploit teams like that. 15 wins means two wins in each of the remaining seven multi-game series (wins in six plus a split in Busch), plus a win over the Cardinals in the makeup game at Wrigley on Monday. This is by no means impossible, but it's a tall order. Here are five things the Cubs need to happen to go 15-8 to end the year:

1. Zambrano returns to June/July form.
Hey, remember Carlos Zambrano's two-month stretch where he went 9-3 with an ERA under 2.00? I hope he does, because he's going to have to duplicate it over his last 4-5 starts. Zambrano may not win the Cy Young like he promised, but if he doesn't set a career high for wins (17+), this team could well be in trouble. As well as everyone else has pitched, the ace needs to show up - or at least needs to stop being a guaranteed loss every time he takes the hill.

2. Soriano/Theriot hot at the top.
Soriano's two HR today notwithstanding, the top of the order for the Cubs probably hasn't been quite as productive over the course of the year as one might have liked; between them, Soriano and Theriot have an OBP around .335, which isn't great for your 1-2 guys. However, Soriano has proven he can be streaky, and Theriot has had hot and cold months. One hot month for both of them could make a lot of difference.

3. Power surge.
In previous years the Cubs were the team with the low OBP and all the home runs. (In 2005, for example, the Cubs were #2 in HR but #11 in OBP in the NL.) This year they're the team with the low OBP (#10) and no home runs (#14, with 114, leading just Washington and the Dodgers, the latter of whom only passed 100 with their three-homer barrage today). When you have three potential 40-HR guys on the roster and six guys who have at least one career season of 25 homers or more, you probably shouldn't have only two guys at 20 and just three guys in double digits come September, yet that's where things sit. Mark DeRosa hit four home runs in April but has just one since June 27. 11 of Derrek Lee's 17 homers have been bunched post-All-Star Break. There's no way this team is incapable of having a hot streak with the longball; they haven't managed to do it all year, but these guys have done it before. They just need to figure out how to do it again.

4. Continued strong bullpen play.
Dempster's meltdown today notwithstanding, the bullpen may have been the club's biggest strength since things started to turn around in June, and it's not many Cubs teams about which you could say that recently. Scott Eyre remembered how to pitch; Wuertz, Howry and Dempster have been generally reliable; Marmol has been great. My only concern is that it's not a terribly deep pen right now, but perhaps some of the callups can shore it up.

5. Not playing down to the competition.
The Cubs do this a lot. But with so many games remaining against bad teams, they just can't afford to keep doing it. End of story.

Do I think the Cubs can do it? At this stage I would still call myself "guardedly optimistic," but I don't know that I really expect anything. Even if the Cubs can squeeze into the playoffs, I just don't see this team pulling off the consistency to win a World Series (no matter what St. Louis did last year). I'm happy to follow them as far as they go, as I always will; I just don't think I can imagine that being terribly far, playoffs or not.