Carlos Marmol, you are RIDICULOUS!

I'd still send them back to the American League if I was commissioner, but there's always high drama when the Cubs face the Brewers. Yesterday was no exception.

Ryan Theriot and Kosuke Fukudome sparked a seventh-inning rally Wednesday to trim a run off the Milwaukeeans' 4-2 lead, and after the Brewers scored twice in the top half of eighth, the same two guys each hit a two-run single in the bottom half to give the Cubs a 7-6 win.

Not to be lost in the excitement was the performance of Carlos Marmol. For the second time in his last three outings, he struck out all three batters he faced to nail down the save. No slouches, either - the meat and potatoes of the Brewers' lineup in Corey Hart, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder; all of them all-stars, all of them swinging.

Marmol is 14-for-14 in save opportunities since taking over the closer's role from Kevin Gregg late last August. He's struck out nine of the 16 batters he's faced in four and a third innings so far in 2010, allowing one hit and two walks. A bit of math tells you that more guys have struck out against him this year than have even hit fair balls. While I'm biased toward my Cubbies, I'm entertaining the possibility that the Cubs could have a Mariano Rivera-type closer on their hands for a good long time.

I'm a bit young to vividly remember the Bruce Sutter era on the north side, but I've seen a lot of closers come and go without the dominating stuff Marmol has. Big Lee Smith never gave me that confidence in the endgame; neither did Rich Gossage, Mitch Williams, Rick Aguilera, Randy Myers, Tom Gordon, Rod Beck, Antonio Alfonseca, Joe Borowski, LaTroy Hawkins, Ryan Dempster, Kerry Wood, Kevin Gregg... see where I'm going with this?

The Cubs aren't very well represented on the list of single-season save leaders. The two over 50 in a season, Myers and Beck, are also the only two over 40. Plenty of ex-Cubs appear on the all-time list, 7 of the top 25, but only Smith, if even him, is associated first with the Cubs around the leagues. The best of the lot, Dennis Eckersley, made one relief appearance here before Tony LaRussa struck gold with him in Oakland.

I'm not saying the Cubs need a 60+ save guy like Francisco Rodriguez to take it to the next level - ideally a dominant team would score too many runs to present that many opportunities - but settling in with a young closer who allows you to wipe your brow and relax with a short late-inning lead, as opposed to making a Maalox run during the seventh-inning stretch, is a necessary element for repeated postseason appearances.

Unless the wheels come off the wagon in the next couple of years or Marmol develops chronic shoulder or elbow problems, Jim Hendry would do well to lock him down for the long haul before he reaches free agency in 2013.