The March Towards .500

The Cubs continue their march towards .500, albeit in the wrong direction. While I'm not writing off the 2005 season just yet, the club has some serious holes to plug -- starting rotation, middle relief, left field, and center field. Left field needs more experience and center field needs more offensive and defensive competance. Hell, let's pull Kenny Lofton out of mothballs if we have to. If the gap between the Cards and the Cubs doesn't narrow significantly around the time of All-Star break, the best the Cubs can hope for is a Wild Card berth. The Cards, though not a streaking team, are a consistent team. The Cubs... not so much.

The Astros are starting to look in practice like the team they are on paper. They're also repeating their 2004 regular season performance, just recently surging with a little more than half the season left. Whether they can repeat 2004 completely is a different matter. They have the pitching and the hitting -- moreso than the Cubs with the obvious exception of Derrek Lee.