The Mets are a team in turmoil.  More than any other team this year, they have been racked by injuries, their manager and GM are on the hot seat, and rumors are swirling that thier owner, Jeffrey Wilpon, lost so much money in the Madoff scam that he is going to have to sell the team.  Even so, the hapless Mets were able to take two-out-of-three from the Cubs over the weekend. 

The Sunday loss for the Cubs was particularly painful.  Three of the Cubs four rivals in the Wildcard race also lost, so the Cubs had a great opportunity to pickup ground.  Instead, they keep pace with San Francisco, Atlanta, and Florida, but fall another game behind Colorado.  The Cubs are now 8.0 behind the Rockies in the Wildcard race.

Games against sub-.500 teams are games that the Cubs have to win.  As I pointed out previously, the Cubs have the weakest schedule of all of the teams vying for the Wildcard.  Making the playoffs is at best a longshot.  But if the Cubs can’t start winning the games they are supposed to win, it will be an impossibility.

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I have to admit, I felt a little stupid writing that previous paragraph.  I know I’m one of the few die-hards still holding out hope.  I’m probably foolish for doing so, but I’ve got nothing else to do, so I might as well continue to build up unrealistic hopes.  If I’m wrong — and I almost certainly am — I’ll know soon enough.

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Bill Madden of the New York Daily News wrote an article about how the Cubs and Mets are both partners in pain this year.  His premise is that both teams were  legitimate World Series contenders at the beginning of the season, and both teams fell off the face of the Earth for various reasons.  Here’s a paragraph I especially liked:

“You think the Mets have had a miserable season?  Well, if they lead the league in misery, the Cubs are right behind them, and at least the Mets can look to a ray of hope next year on the assumption that so many of the key components — Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, John Maine, et al — will be healthy again.  The Cubs? They can only wish many of their so-called key components aren’t back next year.”

Ouch…

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The Cubs took my advice and shut down Alfonso Soriano for the year.  As it turns out, his knee was worse than first reported and he’s already decided to have surgery on it.  As a bonus, he’s also going to have his eyes examined.  Apparently, several players have asked Soriano if he could see okay.  Maybe there’s something to it.

Soriano has been a bit of a warrior most of this year, playing through pain.  But is that good or bad?  On the one hand, I appreciate the guy’s effort.  He wants to be out there every day and wants to contribute.  On the other hand, his injury prevents him from contrbuting.  In fact, if Soriano’s offensive stats are any indication, his injury may have been one of the biggest factors in why the Cubs offense was so ineffective this year. 

This is a more complicated question than it might seem at first blush.  If Soriano had held himself out of games when his knee wasn’t feeling right, people would have called him soft and would have questioned his commitment.  However, since he played through the pain, people are calling him selfish and a me-first kind of guy.  It really is a no-win situation for Soriano.

It reminds me of Mark Prior’s frequent trips to the DL.  People thought he was just being weak because he couldn’t pitch through his injuries.  In fact, many people questioned his injuries, including some on the Cubs training staff.  Because they couldn’t find anything wrong with him, they assumed he was making more out of the pain than there was.  And the bad thing for Prior was that even when doctors finally found his problem, people still said he was weak and uncommitted.  Once people make up their minds, they don’t like to change them, facts be damned.

Alfonso Soriano played a big role in the Cubs making it to the post-season two years in a row (2007-2008) for the first time since the early 1900′s.  Unfortunately, a lot of fans are quick to forget his effort in those years because he struggled so mightily this year.  Let’s hope that he can get healthy in the off-season, get glasses if he needs them, and come back strong in 2010.

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Cubs SS Andres Blanco made an unbelievable play on a ground ball hit by the Mets’ Jeff Francoeur during Sunday’s game.  The stop he made on the ball was nice, but the throw from his butt was unreal.  How can you get that much juice on a throw when you’re throwing from your backside?  Even more impressively, how can you be that accurate? 

The Cubs have a crop of good shortstops in the pipeline.  Blanco is currently at the head of the class, but he’s more of a “strong defense, weak offense” kind of shortstop.  Some of the guys that are behind him are more of a complete package.  Unfortunately, none of them will be ready to join the big league team for a couple of years.