It would have been too easy to have scored five or six runs in the top of the first last night and ripped the beating heart out of the Braves’ chest. It would have given the Cubs a strangle hold on the first round playoff series. It would have meant that the Braves would have to beat Mark Prior, Matt Clement AND Kerry Wood to survive.

Instead, the Cubs got out the road map on the bases and took wrong turn after wrong turn. They stood at home plate in situations where any kind of batted ball would mean a run and they swung and missed.

And yet, they leave Atlanta with a big grin on their faces for two reasons.

1) If they win both games at Wrigley it’s over.
2) They’re better than the Braves are.

Atlanta won 101 games during the regular season, but they did it by bashing the ball on everybody. The Cubs pitchers have shown that won’t be the case this week. If Atlanta wants to win, they have to outpitch the Cubs. They did it last night (sort of), but aren’t likely to do it again.

Carlos Zambrano pitched his hiney off and shook off the whispers that his arm was shot from too many innings during the regular season. Sore arms don’t light the radar gun up at 96 MPH in the sixth inning of a start.

What came back to haunt the Cubs was their inability to score more than two runs when they let Mike Hampton strike out the side to get out of what was already a disastrous first inning for him. The top three guys in the Cubs’ order were on base nine times and only scored twice. That’s not good.

We need to work on that.

Momentum isn’t an oft used word in baseball, but when it is used, people harken back to the old baseball proverb. Momentum is your next starting pitcher.

For the Cubs it’s The Franchise, Mark Prior. He’ll hand a two to one series lead over to Matt Clement for Saturday. Clement will face world reknown superstar Horacio Ramirez. All is well.

Compare where the Cubs are with where the Yankees, Giants and Red Sox are right now. Want to trade places with any of them?

The Yankees are down to the Twins 1-0 and know that they’ll have to go into the Metrodome and win at least one game (maybe two) just to say alive. Nobody goes into the Metrodome needing a win and gets it.

The Giants fiddled away a three run game two lead and this weekend they’ll get to see what Pro Player Stadium looks like when it’s full of fans for a baseball game.

The Red Sox were excited because they’d have Pedro Martinez going twice against the A’s. They lost his first start last night after handing a lead to their much maligned, and deservedly so, bullpen. Oops.

The Braves have to come to Wrigley and beat The Franchise tomorrow to avoid two straight elimination games.

It was disappointing to have so many chances and not deal a death blow to Atlanta, but the Cubs are in good shape.

Enjoy it.

It hasn’t happened much in the last 100 years.

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Rush Limbaugh “resigned” from ESPN’s Sunday pregame show because he said something controversial. Wasn’t that the whole point of having him on that show in the first place? He didn’t say that Donovan McNabb couldn’t play quarterback because he’s black, or that the media was racist or anything of the sort that felled Jimmy “The Greek” and Al Campanis. What he said was that Donovan McNabb has been overrated because the national media have made him a star when perhaps his numbers don’t support it.

Frankly, the fact that Donovan is sinking my fantasy team leads me to think one way, but memories of him singlehandedly beating the Bears in the playoffs two years ago remind me just how good McNabb is. Whether you agree with Rush or not (and most people don’t), it just seems a little ridiculous that you pay a guy to speak his mind and challenge the status quo on your pregame show and after four shows you force him to resign for doing what you hired him to do.

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Speaking of ESPN, just how hard do they have to try to consistently assemble poor baseball announcing teams? The Chris Berman-Rick Sutcliffe-Tony Gwynn troika might be the worst of all-time. Gwynn is solid, but gets lost amid Berman trying to be clever (How’s that working out for you? Being clever?) and yelling a lot, and Sutcliffe just saying stupid things. Then, their “A” team of Jon Miller and the Anti-Christ, Joe Morgan, have never met a game they can’t annihilate. When you hear Miller do Giants games on the radio you realize just how good he is. What that means is that Morgan is so incredibly bad that he makes a very good play-by-play man sound like Chip Caray’s understudy.

If the Anti-Christ were a blender he’d have two settings: a) puree a point to death until it’s a sub-liquid substance and b) “Hey, remember how good I was?”

OK, that joke suffered from me only knowing the name of one blender setting.

ESPN’s best announcing team is the not-ready-for-prime-time-Algonquin roundtable of Dave O’Brien, Jeff Brantley and David Justice. I think the names alone prove just how low the bar is.

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The Cubs had a chance to end this one early, and didn’t. Dave Veres and his 74 MPH nothing ball ended it three hours later.

Cubs fans are everywhere.

Carlos was jacked up for his first postseason start, but in a good way, and Dusty gets a plug in for his toothpicks.

Hey, did anybody know that Regular Joe used to pitch in the Mexican League? What a shock. Oh, well. At least Bonnie DiSimone managed to avoid any Jake Taylor jokes.

“Hey Taylor, what are doing back here, couldn’t hack it in the Mexican League?”

Mike Downey says Dave Veres didn’t try to lose the game. Well, that’s nice.

Rick Morrissey sees the future and it’s Mark Prior and it’s Friday night and it’s going to be fun.

Phil Rogers column on Carlos Zambrano has barely any point. He did notice that Carlos did not continue to throw 100 mile per hour fastballs through the sixth inning. Really? Well, he must be hurt then. Oh, shut up, Phil.

The White Sox have spoken to Cito Gaston. Let’s hope they woke him up first.

Kirk Hinrich is a rookie and he has to tidy up the ballrack. Too bad he won’t tidy up his hair. Wow, did we really draft this little jagoff? I was hoping that was a bad dream.

Groucho says that Lakers camp will be a circus, you know because it’s the Lakers and it’s always that way, plus they added Gary Payton and the dumbest man in basketball, Karl Malone, and apparently Kobe Bryant has been charged with raping a woman in Colorado. Did anybody else hear about any of this?

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to predict doom for the Cubs. Jay, please shut up.

Rap says the Cubs and Braves made big bucks for Fox. Well, mainly the Cubs.

The Wizard of Roz on momentum in the playoffs.

Jayson Stark says the failures of the past drive the Braves. Yeah, well it’ll drive them home after they get eliminated on Saturday.

Peter King with a good look at just how wrong Rush Limbaugh was about Donovan McNabb.

Lil’ Kim has to face the reaper for her reefer thing. Yeah, I had no idea. That completely sucked. But it’s Lil’ Kim, so who cares?

Six women say Ah-nuld humiliated them on the sets of his movies. That may be true, but I’ve seen most of Arnold’s movies and the acting by everyone involved was humiliating, too.

Now the Daily News says Rush is a pill-popper.

Anybody want to bid on a bucket of tap water?

A New Mexico woman gave birth in a bathroom to a baby already hooked on weed and meth. Ahh, what a grand world in which we live.

Colin Farrel whipped out his manhood (sounds more like boyhood) at a bar.

Good news guys! Halle Berry’s single again. Oh, but she’s still insane.

Elle MacPherson is in drug and alcohol rehab. Maybe she can save a spot for Rush?

Bedbugs are back. And they love Madison. Who knew?

The world’s greatest newspaper says that Elvis has apparently moved back to Graceland. Well, he does own the place, after all.