From here to Augusternity

(Reallllly stretching for that joke.)

It's June 13. The Cubs are 43-24 - 3.5 up in the Central and as many games over .500 as they've been since they were 88-69 on September 28, 2004 (this was after losing the first of five straight games that cost them the wild card). It's also the most games over .500 the Cubs have been at any point in any June since ending June 1977 at 47-24. (The Cubs finished 1977 81-81. Let's avoid comparisons to that team from here on out.) Not to get all crazy here, but it is entirely possible that this is the best Cubs team of my lifetime on talent, and if they keep winning at their current percentage they would win 104 games, which would make them objectively the best Cubs team since 1935 on percentage and since 1910 on win total.

Of course, there's the little matter of the home/road splits. The Cubs are 29-8 at home (!!!) and 14-16 on the road; if these percentages hold up over the full 162, the Cubs would go 64-17 at Wrigley (!!!!!!) and 38-43 on the road. This would still be good enough for 102 wins. It seems unlikely that the Cubs can go 64-17 at home, but at the same time I wouldn't necessarily bet on them being a sub-.500 road team all year.

The time to stop being a sub-.500 road team is now, because the road is where the Cubs are spending a lot of the next Soriano-less six weeks. Here's the upcoming schedule:

June 13-15: @ Toronto
June 17-19: @ Tampa Bay
June 20-22: vs. White Sox
June 24-26: vs. Baltimore
June 27-29: @ White Sox
June 30-July 3: @ San Francisco
July 4-6: @ St. Louis
July 8-10: vs. Cincinnati
July 11-13: vs. San Francisco
July 18-20: @ Houston
July 21-23: @ Arizona
July 24-27: vs. Florida
July 28-31: @ Milwaukee

That's 42 games and 26 of them are on the road. If current home/road splits hold, the Cubs will be 68-41 at the end of July, but this requires them to go 13-3 in those 16 home games, and as many games as they've won at home, as I said, I'm not sure we can expect that forever. At the same, you would really want to see better than 12-14 on the road as WPs dictate. Look at those 26 games, though - only Houston and the Giants are below .500, and Houston is just one game under and the Giants have been playing better recently. Part of me thinks this is a great chance to show the country what we've got, and part of me is kind of terrified. Look at that interleague schedule! I saw it coming into the season and kind of chuckled. Now it turns out that Toronto has ridiculously awesome starting pitching and Tampa is playoff-caliber, and the White Sox are defying all predictions and looking like they're going to win that division again. I would be perfectly happy to sneak out of that stretch with an 8-7 record. The one good thing is that I think the Cubs might have a decent DH option this year - you could DH Edmonds while putting Hoffpauir in left and Johnson in center (or DeRosa in left, Johnson in center and Cedeno or Fontenot at second), or you could DH Lee and put Hoffpauir at first, or you could DH Ramirez and put DeRosa at third. None of these are that bad of an option. It's not like a few years ago when like John Mabry would DH in interleague games.

I've been talking myself into this in conversations with Drew and my dad, but as long as the pitching keeps up (somewhat quietly, the Cubs are #1 in the NL in ERA, along with their continued first-place status in BA and OBP), I think the Cubs can get along without Soriano. They'll miss the home runs, no question, but his .332 OBP is replaceable - he has the lowest OBP of any of the regular starters, and Cedeno, Fontenot and Hoffpauir all have higher OBPs in their more limited action. And Hoffpauir - who I expect to see either in left or at DH in the Toronto series, especially since the Blue Jays have no left-handed starting pitchers - has a slugging percentage of .579, higher than Soriano's, although granted that's in 19 at-bats and is probably - although not definitely! - going to go down as his sample size increases. At any rate, let's not forget - in the 14 games Soriano missed earlier in the year, the Cubs were 9-5 and scored 7+ runs per game. His slugging is missed, but Soriano out of the lineup almost certainly means an increase in team OBP - and an increase in team OBP usually means more runs, provided it doesn't coincide with a team power outage brought about by the absence of Soriano's one truly indispensable quality.

(Speaking of power outages, what in God's name is Derrek Lee's problem? His on-base percentage has plummeted all the way to .337, just five points north of the Soriano line, for fuck's sake. He's got just one multi-hit game since May 25, and in that same 17-game span he's walked three times and struck out 17. It's getting worrisome. From the start of the season through the end of April, Lee hit .364/.437/.682, with 8 HR and 23 RBI, making him a heavy contributor to the Cubs not really missing Soriano that much. In May he hit .234/.269/.411 with 5 HR and 14 RBI, and so far in June he's hitting .205/.250/.308 with 1 HR and 4 RBI. His post-April BABIP is hovering around .240, which suggests that he's been kind of unlucky, but I think most people who watch this team at all will tell you he has frequently looked lost at the plate in the last six weeks. If we're going to survive the next six weeks with no Soriano, Lee needs to wake the fuck up. It's not even a home/road issue anymore - his home OBP is now .316, compared to .359 on the road. .316! That is scandalously bad.)

Anyway. I would generally doubt that this Cubs team is going to win 104 games, but in the high 90s is really seeming like a distinct possibility as long as they don't fall apart like the '77 team did. The interleague slate should be pretty darn interesting, and then we'll see where things stand.

(Just for comparison's sake, the Cardinals will be playing the Phillies, at Boston, and at Detroit while the Cubs play their schedule. Oh yeah, and six with the Royals. Fuck those guys.)