Send 'em diamondback from whence they diamondcame

If I had to choose between beating the Diamondbacks in the 2007 NLDS and sweeping them in a three-game series at Wrigley in early May 2008, I'd choose the former. But knowing that that already didn't happen, I've gotta say I'm pretty pleased with how this series turned out, especially since I got to watch the entirety of both weekend games and listened to the entirety of Friday's game, which was made even better by the fact that Ron Santo had the day off due to illness. (I don't wish for the guy to get sick, obviously, and yeah, he's a Cubs legend and that's awesome. But he can be really, really grating to listen to on-air. Mike & Mike did something a few weeks ago where they played a clip of Harry Caray spelling someone's name backwards on the air while, in the background, you could hear a pitch being taken, and Greenberg thought it was ridiculous that Caray would just talk right over a pitch like that. But Santo does this all the time, and he'll talk over three or four straight pitches if none are put into play, and he doesn't have the mitigating factor of calling the game on television like Caray did, where the viewer can see for themselves what happened with the pitch. But I digress.)

As obnoxious as their not-really-that-good hitters were in the NLDS last year, and even though they led the majors in runs coming into this series, the place where the Diamondbacks scare me is on the mound. Their top two pitchers are Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. Micah Owings is decent. Their bullpen has an ERA+ of like 150. Chad Qualls, coming into the series, had an 0.93 ERA in 19.1 IP and only just gave up his first ER on May 4. They just called up a guy who had 38 K in 23 IP at AAA this year.

And yet, for the series, the Cubs kind of outpitched the Diamondbacks, certainly in the bullpen. Here are the lines:

Cubs Starters (Lilly, Dempster, Gallagher): 17.1 IP, 11 H, 8 BB, 23 K, 7 ER, 1.10 WHIP, 3.63 ERA.
Diamondbacks Starters (Haren, Scherzer, Gonzalez): 18 IP, 15 H, 5 BB, 14 K, 4 ER, 1.11 WHIP, 2.00 ERA.

The Diamondbacks clearly win on ERA, thanks mostly to Scherzer's 0 ER on Saturday and Gallagher's 4 ER on Sunday in just 4.1 IP (no thanks to Chad Fox walking in two inherited runners with the bases loaded). But Lilly pretty clearly outpitched Haren on Friday (an extremely good sign, along with the fact that the D-Backs did nothing off him beyond Chris Young's first-inning solo homer), and Dempster and Scherzer were basically as good (same 1.00 WHIP and Dempster had one more K). Gonzalez outpitched Gallagher, although they were even for four innings until Gallagher struggled in the fifth (possibly because this was the most innings he'd ever been asked to throw at the big-league level).

Cubs Bullpen (Marmol, Wood, Eyre, Howry, Fox, Wuertz): 9.2 IP, 2 H, 4 BB, 7 K, 0 ER, 0.62 WHIP, 0.00 ERA.
Diamondbacks Bullpen (Cruz, Qualls, Medders, Slaten, Pena): 6 IP, 13 H, 6 BB, 7 K, 11 ER, 3.17 WHIP, 16.50 ERA.

Small sample size alert, of course, but the point is basically that both rotations were good enough to get the game to the bullpens while it was close, at which point the Cubs' hitters pretty much obliterated the Diamondbacks' relievers. I can remember a time not too long ago where if the Cubs were not looking great against a starting pitcher, they'd usually continue that through the relief corps, leading to games where they'd get like combined three-hit. That still happens sometimes, of course, but I have a lot more confidence in this team to come back over the last couple years than I did at any point in my lifetime prior to 2007, especially at Wrigley. In all three games the Cubs trailed at least as late as the fifth inning; on Saturday they hung around while Scherzer was allowing just one unearned run, then exploded for six as soon as he left the game.

Perhaps even more encouragingly, the Cubs bullpen looked just great - and not only that, but efficient. Chad Fox threw 45 pitches in 1.2 IP on Sunday, but aside from that no Cubs reliever threw more than 17 at any point in the series. Wood threw a total of 18 pitches in getting saves on Friday and Sunday; Marmol threw an inning in all three games but threw just 43 total pitches. Wuertz completed an inning with four pitches in Sunday's game.

Better still, the Cubs put an end to their recent struggles and did so against what was the best team in the NL. Okay, you can't say that the Diamondbacks aren't the best team just because the Cubs beat them in three fairly tight games. But the Cubs have more runs scored (in one fewer game played), once again leading the majors in that category; fewer runs allowed; and you have to consider that the Diamondbacks' gaudy 23-15 record is built on a 17-5 record against their own crappy division, the only one in baseball where more than half the teams are below .500 (kind of a cherry-pick, but the fact is the West contains, right now, the worst team in baseball [Padres], a team tied for third-worst [Rockies], and another team that everyone thinks will be the worst in baseball and has scored just 133 runs so far, second-worst in the NL [Giants]). Against everyone else, Arizona is now 6-10. The Cubs have also seized first place back from St. Louis by percentage points and are a half-game behind Arizona and a game behind Florida for best record in the NL. There is little doubt in my mind that the Cubs, as long as they don't have too many more stretches like the 13 games before this current series, will be in contention for best record in the NL all year; right now they're on pace for 96 wins! If the starting pitching continues to be good and the bullpen continues to be great and the hitting continues to be at least timely and at best awesome, well, what can't this team potentially win?

This blog probably looks like it was written by a manic-depressive. But I think the ship's been righted a bit. Four games with the struggling Padres should be interesting, especially since we will have to face Peavy and probably Maddux as well. I think I'll be okay as long as it's no worse than a split, but you really want at least three here, given that right now San Diego is the worst team in baseball (team OBP: .302!!!).