Drinking the Kool-Aid

The Dodgers caught the Reds last night in the NL Wild Card race.

Let’s all take a look at the Dodgers for a moment. On July 26^th, they were six and a half games back. Ten wins later they’re tied for the top at a mere two over .500, 57-55.

Regardless of how badly a team performs, and LA lost 13 of 14 coming out of the All-Star break, pretty much every team goes into a winning streak of some length, where enough key guys play some of their best ball of the season at the same time, where the bats explode if the starter struggles and you get enough runs to get by when he doesn’t.

While the Dodgers were making headway, the Cubs gained four games themselves at the back end of the race. They closed a 5½-game deficit to two on the next spot up, held then as now by the Nationals, and crept up into single-digits on the top spot. Even on their off-day Monday they picked up ground on four teams, and stand four and a half games from a cluster where whomever has the best September will probably take the Wild Card.

Now look not at my mini-protest, but at the measly five games it stands for. There’s talent here, enough buried under the second base controversy and Wood and Prior and Maddux and Lee and slow starts by off-season acquisitions getting used to Wrigley Field for this ballclub to roll off seven or eight wins in a row at some point over 162 games, whether it starts at game 40 or game 110. Even with the rookies staggering through 2006 like newborn colts, enough of them can stay on their feet for the offensive veterans and as strong a front two pitchers as may exist in the NL to get hot behind them and run off a string.

Forget about playing .667 ball the rest of the way to get to .500, and digest this in small bites. Run off seven or eight in a row and that number starts to shrink. Run off seven or eight in a row, and just from all those teams facing each other, you will make major headway on three or four or five teams in that race.

The Cubs still face seven of the nine teams above them, and only the two at the top are even .500 ballclubs. We’re not exactly talking about Detroit or New York or Boston here. Or even the White Sox, Twins or Blue Jays.

Things may have seemed bleak for the last three months, but the Cubs are one hot streak away from getting right back in the thick of things, and this would be a good time to be in one after taking the last two games against a Pirates team the Cubs face seven more times. Who do the Cubs open with tonight? The Brewers. The Brewers minus Carlos Lee (with replacement Kevin Mench mired in a 1-for-17 slump after changing leagues), minus ¾ of their starting infield and possibly minus Ben Sheets.

Mark Prior’s return to form is like making a major mid-season acquisition without giving anything up. Derrek Lee will do the same in a few weeks. Somewhere out there is Wade Miller, making rehab starts. Rich Hill seems to have regained the form that dominated the PCL this season. And Carlos Zambrano may be the best starting pitcher in the league.

Don’t put away the bicarb and Pepto just yet. This might get interesting.