Cubs erase eight-run deficit in two innings

I turned off the gamecast in the top of the first. I was busy anyway, and four quick Colorado runs didn't look promising. I checked back to find it 9-1. Oof. This is how they celebrate having just climbed to the best record in the majors?

By the next time the Cubs had put up a three-spot in the sixth and a pair of runs in the seventh with two men on. I whipped out my dinosaur of a Walkman (aside: Why can't someone put an AM radio in an mp3 player?), and in a matter of moments Mark DeRosa made it a six-run seventh with a two-run homer and put the Cubs up 10-9 for their biggest comeback of the 21st century.

This is how they celebrate having just climbed to the best record in the majors.

The Cubs' ability to come back late in the game against the bullpens of the National League is reminiscent of a lot of basketball games we saw here on the West Side back in the '90s. If you're too young to remember, there were a lot fewer leads at the half than the final standings imply. Somehow there was never a sense of dread when the Bulls trailed by a dozen halfway through the third. Likewise, if this Cubs team trails by one or two runs at the stretch it never feels like the ballgame is over. But eight? That's the kind of win that can put you up to the next level.

I was in the front row of the bleachers when the 2003 team erased a 6-0 sixth-inning St. Louis lead to win 8-7 and start their longest winning streak of the year. I was watching at home when the 1989 team erased a 9-0 Houston lead to win 10-9 and maintain a slim lead in the East. Those were landmark moments for two teams that won their divisions, and this team is stronger than either of them.

To a less dramatic extent, the Cubs have been doing it all season. Not just crooked numbers, big crooked numbers, fives and sixes on a regular basis. Today's seventh inning was their 14th 5+ run inning (versus three allowed) and their fifth in the seventh inning or later. They've put up six-run innings in every inning but the second, sixth and the ninth, and the Cubs haven't played as many ninth innings as most teams.

Today it was Blanco, Hoffpauir, Fukudome, Edmonds and DeRosa. If you can put up nine RBIs in two innings without Lee, Ramirez, Soto or Soriano getting any of them, you can survive one of your big guns having an ice-cold playoff series.

It is a GREAT day to be a Cub fan.

Geremi Gonzalez 1975-2008

Former Cub pitcher Geremi Gonzalez was struck by lightning and killed yesterday on a beach in his native Venezuela.

Here's a picture I took after the 1998 Wild Card playoff win against the Giants, right after Gonzalez sprayed the first half of that bottle on me.

Litmus test for Wood

I mentioned it on Opening Day, but has anyone else noticed that when Kerry Wood hits the first batter he faces, he has a bad outing?

In the opener it was a hit batter, a sac bunt, an intentional walk, a single, a strikeout and a two-out double. It cost the Cubs and Wood a win when Kosuke Fukudome's 9th-inning homer only tied the game.

It happened again May 1 against the Brewers for a blown save and another Cub loss, a hit batter, a double, a single, a walk, a strikeout and another double, with Wood escaping more trouble when a runner was thrown out at the plate.

Tonight it sent the game in Pittsburgh to extra innings for another blown save on a hit batter, a single and two sacrifices.

Woody's been almost lights-out outside of those appearances, and if you can tell that quickly when it's not his day, taking immediate action might put a few more ticks in the Win column.