Cubs win streak: Start of Turn-around? or Just beating the last place Indians?

The Cubs are currently on their longest win streak since mid-May, 4 games.  The outstanding thing about this streak is that 3 of the 4 games have been comeback walk-offs with late inning heroics and the offense has started to show signs of life.  So does this mean that the Cubs are about to go on a tear that will catapult them to the top of the division or is it simply the fact that they faced a terrible Indians team that was missing key players?

Kevin: Normally, I would say that this win streak was a combination of the Indians sucking and the Cubs playing decent because normally, that’s what makes up a win streak.  But not this time.  The Cubs comebacks against the White Sox and Indians were fantastic.  They showed that this team can come back late in games and they can rely on their offense to get them out of jams.  I truly believe that this is the start of the surge that will propel the Cubs to the top of the division.  I have a couple of reasons for this.  On Friday, when Rich Harden gave up 7 runs and the Cubs were down 7-0, the Cubbies could have given up and just taken the loss, but they fought back it dramatic fashion to win.  And not just in 1 inning but in two innings.  In that game, their major rally was in the 8th, when they scored 4 runs to make it a 7-6 ball game.  They were still down a run in the 9th against an All-Star closer, but they competed the rally to win in one of the best comebacks I’ve seen in recent years.  Then there was the game on Saturday.  After giving up a homer in the top of the 13th, the Cubs didn’t quit and Andy White(Andres Blanco) came through with a huge single andKerry Wood’s wild pitch gave the Cubs the win.  The never say die attitude is huge with a baseball team because unlike other sports, there is no clock.  It’s not over until the last out is recorded and that’s what makes baseball so great.  D-Lee is on fire with a 18-game hit streak, Milton Bradley is on a 10 game hit streak, Geo is starting to rip it, Fukudome is coming out of his slump, and the starting pitching (for the most part) is still going strong.  This team is about to start dominating like they did last year.

Brian: Even though the format of Loud Noises is based on argument, I must concur with Kevin.  Oh, I must.  The Cubs are a summer baseball team & they hit their low-point about two & a half weeks ago.  For those local readers out there, you can vouch that it has been a damn circus of weather in Chicago.  Finally, it seems like we are fully ensconced in summer and thus, the Cubs can begin to roll punks.  I’m no numbers wizard, but I’m pretty sure AlSo’s batting average goes up .200 when the temps over 83.  Ya, he’s going to hit .424 through August.  Plus, as Kevin mentioned, Kosuke is getting back into his swing and has really been hitting lately.  Who knows when Aramis will be back, but his addition will also pay huge dividends for ‘ol LouP.  Regarding the hurlers, pretty much as long as things stay level with current trends (congrats Wells!) all will be well through the 2nd half of the season.  There is 3 weeks until the All-Star Game andI think it’s advantageous that the Cubs aren’t sending 9 representatives again.  Between the weather and the ugliness of May & June, I think that a lot of guys will really benefit from a few days at home with family.   Keep an eye on the Cubs.

Kyle: First of all, let me thank Kevin for his very Lou Piniella-esque recap of the weekend. I don’t know what would we do without Kevin’s play-by-play (rolling eyes). Now let’s get to business. Were these last four days some of the most exciting baseball games I’ve ever watched? Hell yes, but I am certainly not convinced that this team is back and ready to roll. The worst thing anyone can do is look at these four games and say the Cubs are back for sure. In baseball, we often judge players and teams by their most recent performance, which is just wrong. The sample size is too small to say that this team is going to start winning on the reg or that D-Lee is going to hit a home run every game or that Fukudome is hot again. They all played well and showed that they can still produce, but I don’t think they are going to do it at a clip like this for the remainder of the season. Think of it this way, the Cubs are only three games over .500 but they have been up as many as seven and down as many as five (I think). That says to me that this team has a lot of mood swings. One week they’ll play great and another they’ll play like crap on a crapstick. And right now they are hot, although I wouldn’t consider winning three comeback victories at home against a very average Sox team and an AL-worst Indians team being hot. The one saving grace is the starting pitching. Outside of Rich Harden’s start, the starters have been fantastic for weeks. This is a very good sign and encouraging for the future success of this team. So I guess I’ll have to be the pessimist here, but this team is not back yet. Let’s see how they look on July 9 (their next off day) before we declare ourselves playoff bound.