Carlos Zambrano made his return to the mound for the Cubs on Tuesday night but the outcome was not what he was looking for. Zambrano lasted just 4 1/3 innings as the Cubs were embarrassed by the visiting Nationals 15-6. It sure isn’t the way the team was hoping to start off a ten game home stand where they had hoped to get back in the wild card or division race. Sure doesn’t look like that will be happening now.

Zambrano wasn’t the only Cubs pitcher to struggle even though he did give up eight runs. Aaron Heilman allowed a grand slam to Elijah Dukes while Sean Marshall and Tom Gorzelanny were both charged with three runs each. Just not a good night to be a Cubs pitcher.

Milton Bradley had the hot bat for the Cubs as he went 4-4 but it doesn’t matter when your pitching staff struggles. Bradley, Zambrano and Jeff Baker all hit solo home runs in the game but the solo shots did little damage to the Nationals pitching staff. Geovany Soto had a rbi double in the game as well as he looks to get out of his season long slump.

Oh yeah, why the hell was Aaron Miles in the game again even it was in a pitch hitters role?

Things sure don’t look for this ball team right now.

- Cliff

I wasn’t around to update the blog much over the weekend as I was busy tearing up cement and fixing a water problem with our house but here I am now to talk a little bit about what has happened the past couple of days.

First off, the Cubs dropped three out of four games against the Dodgers in Los Angeles. They really weren’t outplayed in the series, the offense just didn’t knock in the runs when they needed to and didn’t take advantage of runners in scoring positions. The team could have easily took two out of four or three out of four games in this series and the offense actually showed up and knocked in some runs.

With the team struggling as of late on the road, they are now eight games out of first place in the division and seven games out of the wild card lead. Things sure don’t look good for the team and the playoffs unless they go on a long winning streak and the Cardinals or other teams start to lose some games.

The team was also finally sold to the Ricketts Family on Friday. There had been rumors going around all this past week that an announcement would be released on Friday and that is exactly when the press release came out. The Rickets family will own 95% of the Cubs, Wrigley Field and Comcast Sportset Chicago while the Tribune Co. will own the other 5%. The sale only took two damn years to happen thanks to Sam Zell holding out for as much money he can get.

The team will have an off day on Monday before starting a series with the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night. This is a series that the teams needs to sweep if they want any chance of post season action. It’s a long road the team needs to travel and I’m not sure they can pull it off.

- Cliff

Cubs starter Rich Harden was wheeling and dealing on Wednesday night as he threw seven shutout innings and only allowed one hit as the Cubs avoided an embarrassing three game sweep to the San Diego Padres. Rich really stepped up and threw the ball well just like he should every time out there on the mound. One thing that helped Harden out was that the offense finally showed up and knocked in seven runs as the final score was 7-1.

Leading the way for the offense was Milton Bradley and Aramis Ramirez who both had solo home runs in the sixth inning when the Cubs broke the game wide open. Ramirez finished the game with a team high three rbi. Derrek Lee, Kosuke Fukudome and Koyie Hill all chipped in with an rbi of their own as well. It was just a nice offensive performance by the club as they jumped all of Mat Latos and Luis Perdomo.

Aaron Heilman threw a scoreless inning in the eighth inning before Sean Marshall came in to throw the ninth inning. Marshall blew the shutout as Chase Headley knocked in a run with a rbi single to center field.

There are 44 games left in the season and the team needs to build from this six run victory. The offense needs to continue hitting the ball hard and the pitchers need to get ahead early and throw strikes if they want to have any shot at postseason play. Let’s see how things go against the Los Angeles Dodgers over the next four games. I would be happy with a split but if they can some how come away with a 3-1 series victory that would be great and set the team up well against upcoming series against the Nationals and Mets.

- Cliff

Ryan Dempster took to the hill Tuesday night for the Cubs hoping to get the team back on the winning track and despite striking out ten Padres batters, he was not able to get the team on the winning track. Dempster had an up and down outing as he was charged with eight hits and four runs in seven innings of action. Not the quality outing Dempster was hoping for.

“I’m ticked off,” Dempster said. “I could’ve made better pitches. Guys put up runs early. I gave up a home run to the one guy [Adrian Gonzalez] in the lineup who you don’t want to beat you. It was a first-pitch split and he hit it out. I felt I could’ve been better. You allow 11 baserunners, you’re going to have a tough time winning the game.”

The Padres also tacked on two more runs in the eighth inning off of reliver Angel Guzman when rookie Kyle Blanks hit a inside the park home run. It just isn’t your teams night when the opposing team hits a inside the park home run.

The Cubs offense once again struggled as they couldn’t pick up Dempster and Guzman. Derrek Lee did hit his 24th home run of the season but other than that the team only had rbi singles from Alfonso Soriano (his 1500th hit) and Dempster. This offense is struggling and Lou doesn’t know what to do with them.

The Cubs know they need to go on a long winning streak but I don’t think they can perform under pressure to get it done. I don’t see this team making the post season.

- Cliff