Any which way you can

I'll take the win, of course, but thank God there's an off day tomorrow. It must be something about series openers with the Pirates recently - remember that game from last September at Wrigley where it was 7-7 after three innings, and the Cubs eventually won 13-8? That wasn't as bad as this, though. This game took years off my life. You don't start 7-0 against a team that everyone knows isn't very good and expect to watch that lead get frittered away thanks to some embarrassing defensive lapses. It sounded like Pat and Ron had suddenly started calling a Bad News Bears game. Let's get another round of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly going.

The Good: Once again, Kosuke Fukudome. 3-for-5 with two walks, a stolen base, an RBI and a run scored. Also, Soto was 3-for-7 with 2 RBI and threw out Nyjer Morgan in a huge spot in the bottom of the seventh. Lee continues to hit, going 2-for-5 with two walks, and it sounded like he got hosed on that strikeout in the tenth. I also liked seeing another four stolen bases; it's nice finally getting to watch a team with some speed and that knows how to use it. On the pitching side, Lieber came up huge, going three scoreless innings after the five pitchers preceding him (with some help from the non-Lee infielders, of course) coughed up the 7-0 lead, although he did have to work out of a serious jam in the bottom of the ninth (and if Jose Bautista doesn't stupidly bunt down the first base line without the squeeze being on, we're quite possibly not having this conversation).

The Bad: Lilly struggled for the second straight start, although with some better defense behind him in that fourth inning it might not have come to that. Every starter got a hit, but Soriano and Ramirez were both just 1-for-6 and didn't look very good, although bonus points to Ramirez for managing to hit the game-winning sac fly. I'm not sure what was up with Pignatiello not being able to throw a strike - eight pitches, all balls! - but let's hope that doesn't repeat.

The Ugly: Oh, God, that defense. What the hell happened? I know Lee's the only Gold Glover in that infield (not that Gold Gloves mean much, but we know he's good), but did everyone else have to make an error? Hearing Cedeno and Ramirez go back-to-back was just brutal, and DeRosa's bobble to tie the game was equally painful. Maybe on the off day these guys should just be out there taking grounders.

A win is a win, and maybe good teams have to win games like this from time to time. But on the other hand, good teams probably shouldn't be blowing 7-0 leads to the Pirates. And the Cubs still aren't as good as they should be at stringing hits together to manufacture runs. Aside from the big third inning, there was stuff like Ramirez hitting into a DP in the first with men at the corners; Soto's leadoff double getting wasted in the fifth; second and third with no one out in the sixth netting just one run; second and third with one out in the tenth yielding nothing; and Fukudome singling to lead off the ninth and eleventh innings and getting stranded both times. Obviously over the course of a season you're not going to drive in every single guy who gets on base, but if not for the third inning explosion - which, it might be pointed out, was aided by Gorzelanny's difficulty in finding the strike zone - this might have been yet another game in which the Cubs scored 3-4 runs, and if everything else had happened the same, of course, they would have been buried. Thankfully the Pirates were even more eager to lose this game than the Cubs were. That's not always going to be the case.