Cubs, Sox shouldn't be oh so comfy
Tell me if you feel the same way I do.
Don't the White Sox and the Cubs appear to like themselves a bit too much as they head into what appears to be a special week?
Not only will each of these first-place teams begin a four-game series tonight against their nearest pursuer. The non-waiver trade deadline is set for 3 p.m. Thursday too.
Maybe a stumble early in the week will convince the Cubs and/or the Sox that they need to make a season-altering trade.
"There's nobody we'd like to get rid of," said Cubs general manager Jim Hendry.
Me? There's always somebody I'd like the Sox or Cubs to acquire. No Chicago baseball team should feel it has enough to survive, much less thrive.
Anyway, enough of this dawdling around as baseball has a tendency to do during its endless summer.
Sunday had that feel the game before the all-star break has. You know, sort of like the end of something just before the beginning of something else. But this wasn't the season's mythical first half concluding and the second half about to commence.
It was the end of the dawdle and beginning of the pennant races, perhaps a few days or weeks too soon but right on time just the same.
The Sox go to Minnesota and the Cubs to Milwaukee, both placing their first-place leads on the line against their closest pursuers in four-game series starting tonight.
"It's going to be a fun series," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said after the Cubs rallied to beat the Marlins 9-6.
"Fun" is a lot different from critical. Some Cubs expressed that the games would be "exciting," which is a lot different from pivotal.
"I'm excited about it," Cubs pitcher Jason Marquis said before catching himself and adding, "But we'll take it game by game."
A good guess is that even if that's the Cubs' approach, fans will take it Armageddon by Armageddon. A buzz will circulate through Miller Park that might rival the likes of a Cubs-Sox series down here.
Heck, the moribund Metrodome might even come alive with people and vibrations, especially if the Twins pull closer by winning today and Tuesday.
After the Sox' 6-4 loss at Detroit on Sunday, they take a 2-game lead to Minnesota, while the Cubs take a 1-game lead to Milwaukee.
By midnight Thursday - after the series and deadline pass - nothing will be decided but much will be concluded.
"We'll stay on top of it," Hendry said of the trade market, and so will Sox GM Kenny Williams.
But both are browsing more than shopping, expecting to get better by getting healthy rather than by getting reinforcements.
The most recent times Chicago baseball teams were this giddy with themselves were the Cubs entering the 2004 season after being five outs from the '03 World Series and the Sox entering 2006 after winning the '05 World Series.
The Cubs thought their only hole was the pitching staff's last man. The Sox might have thought they had none after adding Jim Thome to a championship club.
Remember, neither qualified for the playoffs.
So in a season when both the Sox and the Cubs are legitimate contenders, they just might want to add another piece to the puzzle.