Chicago Cubs Baseball

Where’s Michael Barrett when you need him?

For a city sizzling for summer sports excitement, the interleague wrap-up between Chicago’s Cubs and White Sox fell somewhere on the scale between a big yawn and a deep sleep. Much like both of these team’s seasons.

For the record, the weekend series will go down in the books as game, match, set - all Cubs. The sweet 3-0 sweep - tacked on to the two out of three when the clubs met back in May - gave the Cubs five of six overall and the most wins ever by either team in a season since the interleague series expanded to six games in 1999.

It was a dominating effort by the Cubs. So much so I half expected White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski to take a swipe at the Cubs’ Koyie Hill ala 2006 Michael Barrett.

But all that made the 2006 intra-city series another reason to dislike the Sox never produced. Like the club’s offense.

This was no trash-talkin’, plate-slappin’, sky-pointin’, punches thrown affair. This wasn’t about home run heroics or high-tension dramatics.

Instead, it was a series of execution. A perfectly placed squeeze bunt here. Timely hitting there. And solid starting and relief pitching throughout. All by the Cubs no less.

This was a series of one team - the Cubs - maybe finding themselves, and the other - the Sox - slipping further into the AL Central abyss. The White Sox looked shell-shocked for most of the series, contrasted by a Cub squad that appeared calmly confident throughout.

Even Sox manager Ozzie Guillen’s ejection was low key. According to umpire crew chief Joe West, Guillen was a gentleman throughout and was ejected at his request.

Maybe three weeks into June, Cub fans are finally seeing the team we expected in April.  Or maybe we just entered the Twilight Zone.