Same Old Crap

After experiencing an offensive renaissance, partly sparked by Alfonso Soriano being dropped in the order, the Cubs seem to have regressed once again, at least going by the last two games.

Tuesday the team managed just a single run on behalf of Carlos Zambrano, losing 2-1 to the Braves.  On Wednesday they followed this pitiful effort up with another 1-run mustering in support of Kevin Hart who started in place of the Toecrusher Ryan Dempster.

It is not a coincidence that Derrek Lee went 0-8 in these two games.  Lee hits, the Cubs score.  Lee doesn’t hit…we see what happens.  It’s unfortunate that so much of their success should depend on one guy, but that’s just the way it’s been.  As Lou Piniella recently said, he has been carrying the team.

But Lee can’t shoulder the entire burden himself; someone else has to start hitting, at that someone needs to be named either Aramis Ramirez or Alfonso Soriano.  And in fact, both those guys went 2-4 on Wednesday, so even though the team managed just a single run, at least there’s hope that some big bats might be warming up.

Big warm bats:  that’s what Cubs fans want to see.  This team needs a huge run, a 10-2 stretch or something like that, to flush this whole listless thing out of their system.  Pitching’s great but you go on runs like that when your offense gets hot.  We know the Cardinals and Brewers have the sticks to go on that sort of tear, but we don’t know if the Cubs do.