Time to Chill Out Cubs Nation

The boo birds are alive and well in the place they call the friendly confines. Message boards are filled with “Fire Lou” or “The season is over” posts.

The Chicago Cubs, as most of the sports world has surely noticed, have gone in a bit of a slump. There is not one Chicago Cubs starting position player that is hitting above .300. In fact they rank in the bottom half of most offensive categories.

Milton Bradley is surely not living up to his contract or what the city of Chicago had hoped for. Then you have him making a couple blunders during Friday’s game against the Minnesota Twins, but I will get back to that later.

Then you have Alfonso Soriano, who signed a massive contract with the expectation that he would be the face of this franchise, that he would be the superstar that this team needed to advance far into postseason play.

The offseason moves have been another frustration of many Cubs fans with Mark DeRosa and Kerry Wood departing.

So is it time to pack it in?

Is it time to panic?

Is it time to fire all managers?

The simple answer to these questions is a big NO. Sure the season hasn’t been what many Cubs fans have expected and the team’s woes at the plate can drive any fan bonkers.

However, the Cubs are only two weeks into June and there is still over 100 games left in the season. That is nearly two thirds of the season. And surely with all the panic and demanding of major changes, the Cubs must be far out of the playoff picture, right? Oh wait, the Chicago Cubs, as of June 13, 2009 are three and a half games out of first in the National League Central.

Really? That can’t be right!

Yes Chicago Cubs fans, that is right the Cubs are only three and a half games out, as awful as things have been the Cubs are still very much in the thick of things. There are some good signs for this team as well, even though the team has looked awful.

The biggest key is that the pitching staff is doing very well. It would be nice to put together some more wins for this staff, but one of the biggest keys to making the playoffs is having a decent rotation and certainly the Cubs have that.

There are also some good pieces to the bullpen. Carlos Marmol, when he finds the strike zone, is lights out. Angel Guzman has been really good as of late and has seen his ERA dip below 3.00, at 2.57 with a 1.04 WHIP.

Jose Ascaino has also been a pleasant surprise out of the pen posting 2.70 ERA. Kevin Gregg hasn’t been horrible either, blowing two saves in 12 opportunities. If he can improve on those numbers a bit, it could make for a solid bullpen down the stretch.

As for the offense the biggest key is the loss of Aramis Ramirez. Anytime you lose your best and biggest threat offensively, it tends to affect the rest of the lineup. Look at what happened in New York with Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees were struggling at the beginning of the season, including their big acquisition Mark Texeria.

However, when he returned they seemed to take to another level. Their offense was very dangerous, Mark Texeria was tearing the cover off the baseball, and the Yankees started to win. I think you can expect much of the same for the Chicago Cubs when Aramis Ramirez comes back.

All these hitters could use Aramis, but maybe no one more than Milton Bradley. He has been struggling a bit