Chicago Cubs Baseball

That gulp you heard late Sunday afternoon wasn’t the sound of choking, but it was a collective hard swallow from the entire Chicago Cubs team.

In dropping the seventh of their last eight games, the Cubs managed to swap victory for defeat by allowing two walks and committing two errors in the pivotal ninth inning.  Sunday’s 4-3 loss to Cincinnati even managed to make Cubs manager Lou Piniella speechless.

For the first time this season, Piniella opted out of the usual post-game meeting with the media.  It may very well have been Piniella was online shopping for a GPS.

After the past 10 days it’s obvious Chicago Cubs baseball needs some directions out of this slump and back to its former self.

If you thought you knew this 2008 version of the Chicago Cubs - guess again.  In Sunday’s loss even the most ardent in Cubdom was enlightened to the ways of this club.

What we learned:

• The Cubs are as capable of losing ugly as they are of winning the same way.  In all honesty, not every one of Chicago’s 86 wins have been a thing of beauty.  When the Cubs are good, they are very good.  But even Cubs baseball falls every now and then to the whims of the Gods and odds.
• Ronny Cedeno giveth and he can taketh away.  Cedeno’s one-out single in the seventh put the Cubs ahead.  His error in the ninth allowed the Reds to tie it.  And just when I was forgetting about former Cub shortstop Alex Gonzalez.
• No lead is safe when it comes to a Cubs closer.  Whether Ryan Dempster last season or Kerry Wood this, every ninth inning is like opening Cracker Jacks - there’s bound to be a surprise in every box score.  Wood absorbed his fourth loss of the season and also was tagged with his sixth blown save.

There is a bright side to the Cubs recent slide.  It seems the Milwaukee Brewers don’t want the Central Division either.