The streak continues

With today's game, that makes, by my count, six consecutive Cubs games that I've attended where the Cubs have won. It seems a little odd that that streak runs back to May of 2001, but it does. Weird thing: in the last four games, the Cubs scored a total of ten runs, but they won all four games (three by one run, as you might guess).

I continue to be a bit worried about the offense. They've yet to start really stringing stuff together; of the three runs today, two were solo home runs and the third came when Zambrano grounded into a double play with the bases loaded and no outs. (In other words: they had the bases loaded and no outs in the second inning, and the end result was one run.) On the bright side, this was the first game of the year in which the Cubs actually managed to score first.

Derrek Lee was just four for his first 18, but in the last two games he's looked really good, including going 2-for-3 today with a walk. He powered his game-winning home run to deep left center (if the wind had been blowing out at all, it would have probably ended up on Waveland), and his only out (a fly ball to center) was pretty well-hit. He's slugging .882 right now and yes, it's ridiculously early. But if he has another season even close to 2005 with the pieces he's got around him now... we could be looking at a really special year for the Cubs.

This, of course, presumes that those pieces wake up. Soriano's 357-foot basket job notwithstanding, he still is looking pretty bad at the plate, and while I'm willing to forgive him for this game since he hit a go-ahead home run and helped preserve a scoreless first inning by cutting down the speedy Michael Bourn at home plate, he needs to start hitting a little better than .077 soon. Maybe going to Pittsburgh will be the cure for what ails him - remember, that's where his first HR was last year after going the entire month of April without one. And then he hit 33 despite not playing for most of August. Ramirez was also 2-for-3 with a walk today, so perhaps he's stirring a bit; Fukudome was 0-for-3, but he also walked. I'm not worried about him at all right now. DeRosa also had a pedestrian day but overall he's looked good in the early going. When all these guys are on at once - plus Soto, who was rested in favor of Hank White today - this lineup is going to be really scary, I think. And there will come a point when they're all on at once, I'm sure of it.