The disaster of 2006 brought about a ton of changes to the Cubs starting with the hiring of Lou Piniella as manager. Lou came out of the broadcast booth to turn the Cubs into winners again, but he wasn't going to do so without the Cubs getting some more talent. That meant Jim Hendry had to spend some money and he sure did.

It started with an 8 year $136 million contract to top free agent Alfonso Soriano. Next was pitcher Ted Lilly for 4 years at $40 million. Then came another pitcher Jason Marquis who got 3 years and $21 million. Add in 3 years and $13 million for Mark DeRosa and that is a nice little spending spree. Albeit a spending spree that was mocked by many, but one that would ultimately pay off.

With a new manager, a shiny new lineup, and a revamped pitching staff that was 100% Mark Prior free the Cubs were ready to win again. The season got off to a bad start though with a 10-14 April that included no homers from new outfielder Alfonso Soriano, though he did go on the DL once. Then came a 12-15 May and the mounting pressure of the season especially with the Brewers off to a great start.

Continue reading

June brought one of the most eventful months in Cubs history, and certainly the most eventful one of the decade (September 2004 is a close second). It started May 30th with a Derrek Lee led meeting to address poor performance. On June 1st Carlos Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett got into a fistfight in the dugout making a bad season look worse. Things started to get ugly with the media, but lucky for the Cubs Lou was there. The next day he lost his cool after a questionable call at third and went on a dirt kicking rampage for the ages. After that day the Cubs were 22-31, but that would be the lower water mark of the season.

The Cubs finished June 17-11, carried that to a 17-9 July and were riding high. Going into Sunday night baseball on August 5th the Cubs were 58-52 one game out of first. Alfonso Soriano tore his quad running to third base and things looked bad. The Cubs went 12-16 in August, but did get back a healthy Soriano for a September run.

In September the Cubs took control of the division thanks to Soriano. He put up a 1.108 OPS with 14 homers, it was the kind of performance that showed why Soriano was on the Cubs. Without his effort the Cubs 17-12 September record would not have been possible, in fact one could say he was the only reason we did win the division.

With the division win came the right to face the NL West champion Arizona Diamondbacks in the first round of the playoffs. It was over almost as quickly as it began, the three game sweep was a giant punch to the stomach. The Cubs were never really in any of the games, and experienced the disappearance of Soriano along with Aramis Ramirez and the rest of the offense.

2007 was a season that the Cubs essentially bought a division title, but it also opened up a championship window for a team that desperately needed to go to the playoffs. It showed us the ability of Alfonso Soriano, and the good managing of Lou Piniella. While the postseason appearance was brief, the point was we made it and things looked great going into 2008.

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment