PatHajovsky wrote:
Cubfan, I feel for you my friend. I'm not generally a fan of the Cubs, but I sure recognize that you're a true blue guy and not a bandwagon jumper.

Flastrohs, you may be right, but I'm not sure those numbers bear out your argument. By "peaking too early", do you mean August or May? After August, Chicago had the thing about wrapped up, and a .500 record is not uncommon for teams which have done that. They also played a lot of teams in contention who were actually playing for something. So I'm not certain "peaking too early" is correct.

I think it is fair to say that the Cubs lost their focus. That lineup should be scoring runs, but they look completely nutted up out there, witness the 4 errors. Maybe the trip to LA helps them relax, but right now I don't see it.

I also think Piniella is part of the problem. I didn't see him pushing them in September to get their asses in gear. It appeared to me from way down here in Texas that Sweet Lou was being too sweet and cruising like the ballclub. It's damn hard to ramp it back up once you lose that thread, and he allowed them to do that.
Look at their September record and runs scored.... .500 team that doesn't score as much. They were playing great baseball until September and since then are 12-14.