Game 1: Not what you like to see

I know this is campy and has been done to death, but here's the optimist and pessimist in me battling it out after the opening 3-1 loss.

Optimist: All right, disappointing start. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. But you have to be encouraged by the fact that the Diamondbacks clearly have no offense. If the Cubs hit at all, how do they not win any game not being started by Webb? He can't start more than two; ergo, Cubs win.

Pessimist: They could keep swinging at just about every pitch, for one thing. I know Webb's good, but is he really that ridiculously deceptive? He made Lee look terrible (and Lee knew it) - I swear Derrek swung at something like five pitches that might have hit him if he didn't foul them off. And how many first pitch outs were there? At least a handful. Way to make the guy work.

O: All right, they didn't look as good as they could have at the plate. But when they made contact, they hit the ball pretty well a lot of the time, and just had a few bad breaks. Ramirez flew out twice to the warning track - in Wrigley he probably has two homers. Anyway, win tomorrow and you still take home-field advantage away from Arizona.

P: Well, Lilly has been the stopper, but the Cubs haven't done great against Doug Davis historically - they only hit .235 off him, and we all know they struggle against lefties.

O: Ah, they hit .263 off lefties. Could have been better but it could have been a lot worse, really. And they have beaten Davis five times in twelve decisions; he hasn't been completely dominant against them or anything.

P: Whatever. And what was up with taking Zambrano out? The guy was coasting! That move lost the game, right there.

O: It did, but it might have won the series. Lou already announced his intention to start Zambrano on short rest in Game Four...

P: You've gotta get to Game Four first! You can't gamble like that in the playoffs, you have to take your chance to win!

O: With the way the offense was going, would it have mattered that much if Zambrano had thrown 30 more pitches?

P: You're starting to sound like me.

O: You get my point. I mean, you're telling me that when Marmol came in you thought he was going to blow up? Even you had to think the seventh inning was pretty safe.

P: Yeah, I'll be honest, if I expected anyone to blow up it would have been Dempster, or maybe if Lou had brought Eyre in. Not Marmol so much.

O: It only looks like a bad move in retrospect. This isn't leaving Pedro Martinez in to face Jorge Posada; Marmol was lights-out all year and Lou trusted him in that spot. He had a bad inning; it happens to the best of them.

P: Yeah, well, it was a pretty bad time for it to happen to the best of them.

O: Sure. But still, I think with Webb out of the way, you have to like the Cubs' chances in these next two games. Arizona isn't going to be able to win this series scoring three runs a game. I'd bet on that, if I gambled.

P: They don't have to face top-form Z over the next couple games, either.

O: You know as well as I do that Lilly's been about as good as Zambrano this year, and Hill is 4-0 with a 0.96 ERA in his four starts this year that came after 6 or more non-start days - and he'll have had six off days when he goes on Saturday.

P: Well... can we at least agree that Soriano gave the Cubs nothing tonight?

O: Well, yeah. He sucked.