Wow, after my last blog post of the Cubs offense sucking and the bullpen not doing a good job things have turned around for the club. After coming back and taking the final three games of a four game set against the Diamondbacks, the Cubs find themselves 7-3 in their last ten to match the St. Louis Cardinals and remain 4.5 games out of first place in the division.

What is it with this team? They will play three or four games and just hit the ball like crazy. (See Alfonso Soriano) and then they will play a couple of down right terrible games and not even make contact. Is it the early season games? Shouldn’t everyone be locked in and seeing the ball well? I don’t know but this next week of games could tell us a lot about this team.

The guys will head to Pittsburgh starting Tuesday night and then will take on the Reds in a weekend series. All six of those games should be wins for the club. Look for the team to get off on the right foot against the Pirates as Ryan Dempster will take the mound. I expect Dempster to have a quality outing and hopefully the offense stays hot and smacks around the Pirates pitching staff.

One guy that still needs to start hitting the ball is Aramis Ramirez. A-Ram is currently batting just 1.55 and will have two full days off before the game on Tuesday night. I don’t care what people say, Aramis needed more at bats during Spring Training. If you are going to the plate trying to hit 4-run home runs with no one on base your head isn’t in the game and you should probably just be on the bench.

The Cubs need to go on a nice run this week and move within a few games of the Cardinals. They can’t get down by 7-8 games as it will be hard to battle back against the Red Birds who look to be very strong this year.

It all starts Tuesday night with Dempster on the mound…

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