All Signs Point To Fail

It's been a pretty odd season for the Chicago Cubs. For the most part everybody and their mother had the team picked to run away with the NL Central this season but ten days into July and the north siders are 41-41. They trail the Cardinals by 3.5 games in the division as they prepare to start a four-game series with St. Louis this afternoon.

Well, if this weather lets them anyway.

Of course it's due to the fact that they're only 3.5 games behind the Cardinals that most baseball fans in this city have been of the opinion that sooner or later, this team is going to wake itself up and get going. I repeat, however, it's July 10th and they're still a .500 team.

Now when Aramis Ramirez came back this week a lot of people, myself included, saw this as just the tonic the Cubs struggling offense needed to get itself cranking again. Today, though, today I wonder if we're all not just fooling ourselves.

Maybe the Cubs just aren't going to live up to the expectations. I mean, how many signs do we need to see before the light goes on in our brains? Aramis Ramirez is back for five minutes, and immediately any optimism that sparks is crushed by finding out that Ryan Dempster may miss an entire month because he's white and has trouble jumping over anything that's more than six inches off the ground.

Now today the Cubs get the news that they could be without Geovany Soto for a month as well, as that strained left oblique he suffered in batting practice has put him on the disabled list.

Soto may not be having the same year with the Cubs in 2009 as he did in 2008, but his absence still hurts. A struggling Soto is still better than Koyie Hill and whoever the Cubs replace Soto with on the roster.

So maybe it's time that we stop listening to that voice in our head that says this team is going to be fine. Maybe we should all start to just accept that fact that even though the Cubs have made the playoffs for the last two seasons, that's not a guarantee they're going to get back for the third.

The Baseball Gods are sending us all of these signals that this is the case. I think it's time we open our eyes and start listening to them.