It never did make any sense. How could the beast of the National League struggle so much on the road? If they got you anywhere near their place, they smacked you, stunned you and dragged you back into their cave and had their way with you. But if they ventured out into the wild they were helpless as a…cub of some sort.

That apparently changed at the All-Star Break. Lou Piniella decided he’d seen enough of this crap. Since the break, the Cubs are 12-5 on the road. That includes a current run of 10-1 in road games.

It’s come in handy, too, because as hot as the Cubs have been since they strolled up to Milwaukee to emasculate the Brewers, Milwaukee’s been feasting on terrible teams.

Starting on August 1, the day after the Cubs finished sweeping them in Miller Park, the Brewers had these vaunted matchups:

Three at Atlanta (Chipper Jones still on the DL, Mark Texieria just traded to Anaheim)
Three at Cincinnati
Four at home v. Washington
Three at San Diego

That’s 13 games against teams a combined ninety-two games under .500.

NINETY-TWO!

The Brewers did their part, they won 11 of those 13 games.

On August 1 they were four games behind the Cubs.

How many games are they behind the Cubs now?

Try five and a half.

Losing two of three to the Dodgers over the weekend makes them 11-5 over the last 16. That’s pretty damned good, right? Nice job. Pat yourself on the back. Hey, if you add in the Dodgers, then over that stretch the teams are only a combined 88 games under .500. Wow, that’s impressive.

Oh, but in their last 16, the Cubs are 12-4. And, they’ve played some sub-.500 teams during that stretch, too. Add up the records and the Pirates, Astros, Cardinals, Braves and Marlins are a combined eight games under. So just 80 fewer games under .500 than Milwaukee’s opponents!

Maude pointed out today in her always pointless power rankings that in the last 30 games, Milwaukee is 10-5 when CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets pitch and 10-5 when the starter is Dave Bush, Jeff Suppan or Manny Parra. That’s…great? How about the fact that they’ve lost three of Sheets’ last four starts?

The Cubs are also 16-6 since the return of Alfonso Soriano. Soriano had an interesting weekend in Florida, especially on Saturday night.

He led off the game with a walk. Then got picked off. But it was the way he got picked off that was so interesting. He was leaning towards first base even before Anibal Sanchez threw to first, and he still got picked off. You don’t see that.

But you really don’t see what happened in his next at bat. Soriano doubled into the right field corner, but didn’t run out of the box. He wasn’t posing because he thought he hit a homer. The ball bounced six or seven times before it reached the warning track. No, Soriano thought he’d hit it way foul into the right field stands. If it was a drive, he’d have gotten a penalty for not locating his ball in time. Oh, well, he ended up on second anyway. But just a reminder, as good as he is, everything’s an adventure for Alfonso.

Then, in case he was worried we’d forget, he played a Cody Ross single into a triple by going all the way to the ridiculous “teal monster” in left to jump for a ball that hit about 10 feet above his outstretched glove. By the time Reed Johnson could come over to back up the play, Ross was on third. If Soriano had judged it better and played the carom, there’s no way Ross would have challenged his arm and he wouldn’t have even attempted a dash for second.

As he always seems to do, Soriano redeemed himself in the seventh with a double to tie the game at two, that was the first of three bases loaded doubles and by the end of the inning the Cubs led 8-2.

Ryan Theriot and Derrek Lee also had big games and added on to their league leads in two important categories.

Theriot was thrown out for the 13th time trying to steal a base. Thirteen times…in 31 attempts. In case you were wondering…that’s shitty. Unbelievably shitty, actually. Try this on for size:

In his first two seasons, Theriot stole 41 bases in 47 attempts. That’s not good, that’s excellent.

Last year he was 28 for 31. How the hell do you go from that to 18 for 31? Jerry Hairston Jr’s never been caught 13 times in a season (he did get caught 11 once, though.) Corey Patterson’s never done it. These are two of the dumbest baserunners of all time. Ugh.

And, Derrek Lee managed to ground into his 24th double play of the season just a couple of innings later.

Yay?

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The 5-1 road trip not only has given the Cubs a 5.5 game lead with 38 to play, but it’s pulled them to within one game of the Angels for best record in baseball.

Milwaukee, meanwhile has a two game lead over St. Louis in the wild card, but don’t look now, the Phillies are only 4.5 back. All along, we’ve all assumed that the Central will send two teams of the playoffs, but maybe not. OK, that’s probably a long shot.

Cecil Cooper has predicted that his Astros will sweep the Brewers this week in Milwaukee. No, really, he said that.

The Astros have crawled back over .500 with a 21-11 run that started in July in Washington (the Nats, starters of win streaks across America.) Cecil’s confidence was no doubt buoyed by the fact that at the end of July, right before the Cubs went to Milwaukee, the Astros went there and took two of three.

What Cecil might not want to remind his team of though, is that in their 21-11 run (which has them a whopping two games over .500 by the way) they are 12-2 against the Nationals, Reds and Giants and 9-9 against everybody else.

And Carlos Lee is out for the season.

And Brad Ausmus isn’t.

But hey, if they want to stay frisky for three more days, I’m not going to complain. They probably just shouldn’t think they’re channeling the 2004 Astros who went 40-18 to finish the season. That was a good team that had a lousy start. This is a lousy team in a good stretch.