Riffing Through a Lost Weekend

Some points from the weekend:

The "Neifi for All Star" crowd must immediately disband.

Whenever Dusty Baker wants to move Korey out of leadoff would be fine by me.

That said, considering that Jim Hendry has only given Dusty a leadoff hitter for the final 10 weeks of 2003 (Kenny Lofton), Dusty should keep putting Korey out there to embarrass Hendry even further.

With Carlos Zambrano's arm now down for the count, how long until even Al Yellon realizes that 2006 starts very soon?

Deep Sixing

This may be the final chance to salvage the 2005 season. The Cubs are now in fourth place. Yes, those of you who don’t look at the standings need to take a fresh look. They are 8 in the loss column in back of the Cards and 5 in back of the Marlins for the Wild Card. They won't catch the Fish. That means, they need to win the division.

Well, the Cards next 9 games are three at Philly, three at KC and three hosting Pittsburgh. Then, after a 3 gamer at home against the Nationals, the Cards move on to the Rockies for 4 and the Astros for 3. Look for the Cards to go no worse than 13-6 in this stretch.

That means, for the Cubs to avoid passing that magical "10 games out" mark that generally signifies the death of a season, they need to go 12-7 over their next 19 games. Ignoring that the Cubs haven’t been 5 over .500 for any portion of this season, the schedule makes you think that they are cooked.

Two at Pitt, three against the White Sox, three with Houston, four with Colorado, three at the Dodgers and 4 at San Diego. The best I can possibly see from that is a sweep of Pitt, take two from both the Sox and Astros, take three from Colorado, and win 3 of the seven West Cost games.

That's 12-7.

But, you know they won't do that well. They'll blow a game to the Sox or Houston. And if they blow other games to Pittsburgh and Colorado, it'll all be over by the Indy 500.

Expect the Cubs to be 12 out by June 5.

On the bright side, if that plays out, Dusty Baker will probably be gone by then as well.