shock, awe and joy

for good measure, let's take a look at this table again.

year	5 back game	10 back game	at year end					through 4/30
			playoff	final gb	w	l	win%	w	l	rs	ra	pythag
1984	n	n	y	0	96	65	0.596	12	8	98	70	0.648
1989	n	n	y	0	93	69	0.574	12	11	85	95	0.450
2001	139	n	n	5	88	74	0.543	15	9	107	91	0.573
1977	115	132	n	20	81	81	0.500	7	9	56	77	0.359
1973	111	n	n	5	77	84	0.478	12	8	85	75	0.557
2003	100	n	y	0	88	74	0.543	15	12	150	109	0.641
1985	80	106	n	23.5	77	84	0.478	12	6	60	46	0.619
1998	76	131	wc	12.5	90	73	0.552	14	13	124	112	0.546
2004	75	93	n	16	89	73	0.549	13	9	115	96	0.581
1978	75	156	n	11	79	83	0.488	11	9	70	84	0.418
1987	60	86	n	18.5	76	85	0.472	10	10	90	81	0.548
1975	59	77	n	17.5	75	87	0.463	12	5	93	73	0.608
1996	52	157	n	12	76	86	0.469	13	14	136	128	0.528
1995	42	73	n	12	73	71	0.507	4	1	29	24	0.585
1974	33	101	n	22	66	96	0.407	7	11	72	109	0.320
1991	32	67	n	20	77	83	0.481	10	11	87	82	0.527
1999	31	89	n	30	67	95	0.414	10	10	88	98	0.451
1980	29	80	n	27	64	98	0.395	9	6	77	77	0.500
2006	27	42	n	17.5	66	96	0.407	13	10	109	112	0.488
2005	25	80	n	21	79	83	0.488	12	11	119	107	0.548
1976	25	38	n	26	75	87	0.463	9	10	99	112	0.444
1993	20	50	n	13	84	78	0.519	11	11	88	91	0.485
2007	19							10	14	112	91	0.593
1990	18	52	n	18	77	85	0.475	8	11	62	82	0.375
2000	17	44	n	30	65	97	0.401	10	17	145	175	0.415
1988	16	39	n	24	77	85	0.475	10	12	97	104	0.468
2002	16	39	n	24	67	95	0.414	8	16	86	110	0.390
1982	13	49	n	19	73	89	0.451	7	14	85	92	0.464
1992	12	114	n	18	78	84	0.481	7	13	61	89	0.335
1994	12	24	n	16.5	49	64	0.434	6	15	95	128	0.368
1986	9	26	n	37	70	90	0.438	7	12	75	96	0.390
1979	8	135	n	18	80	82	0.494	8	9	57	69	0.414
1981	8	14	n	21.5	38	65	0.369	2	13	36	73	0.216
1997	6	18	n	16	68	94	0.420	6	19	95	133	0.352
1983	5	116	n	19	71	91	0.438	6	14	65	94	0.338

soak this in for a little bit. the cubs begin the day tied for first in the national league central and have run out to a 57-49 record -- some eight games over .500.

on june 2, this same ballclub was nine games under .500, tied with cincinnati for the fewest wins in the league.

what has transpired in between has been one of the great extended winning runs in all of cub history, and certainly of the last ten years.

Gm	Date				Team	Opp		RS	RA	YTD				last 50
										W	L	Rank	GB	W	L
52	Fri,	Jun	1	2001	CHC	@MIL	W	4	3	32	20	1	-3.5	31	19
53	Sat,	Jun	2	2001	CHC	@MIL	W	10	4	33	20	1	-3.5	32	18
54	Sun,	Jun	3	2001	CHC	@MIL	L	2	4	33	21	1	-2.5	32	18
55	Tue,	Jun	5	2001	CHC	STL	W	12	6	34	21	1	-3.0	31	19
56	Wed,	Jun	6	2001	CHC	STL	W	4	1	35	21	1	-4.0	31	19
57	Thu,	Jun	7	2001	CHC	STL	W	4	3	36	21	1	-5.0	32	18
58	Fri,	Jun	8	2001	CHC	@CHW	L	3	7	36	22	1	-5.0	33	17
59	Sat,	Jun	9	2001	CHC	@CHW	W	4	3	37	22	1	-5.0	32	18
60	Sun,	Jun	10	2001	CHC	@CHW	L	1	3	37	23	1	-5.0	32	18
61	Tue,	Jun	12	2001	CHC	@ARI	W	6	2	38	23	1	-6.0	31	19
62	Wed,	Jun	13	2001	CHC	@ARI	L	3	13	38	24	1	-6.0	31	19
71	Fri,	Jun	22	2001	CHC	MIL	L	1	2	43	28	1	-6.0	31	19
88	Fri,	Jul	13	2001	CHC	CHW	L	2	7	52	36	1	-3.0	31	19
89	Sat,	Jul	14	2001	CHC	CHW	L	1	3	52	37	1	-3.0	31	19
90	Sun,	Jul	15	2001	CHC	KCR	W	2	1	53	37	1	-3.0	31	19
91	Mon,	Jul	16	2001	CHC	KCR	L	2	4	53	38	1	-2.0	32	18
92	Tue,	Jul	17	2001	CHC	KCR	W	7	4	54	38	1	-3.0	32	18
93	Wed,	Jul	18	2001	CHC	@PIT	W	6	5	55	38	1	-3.0	32	18
94	Thu,	Jul	19	2001	CHC	@PIT	L	2	3	55	39	1	-3.0	32	18
95	Fri,	Jul	20	2001	CHC	@HOU	L	2	5	55	40	1	-2.0	31	19
152	Wed,	Sep	17	2003	CHC	NYM	W	2	0	82	70	2	0.5	31	19
153	Fri,	Sep	19	2003	CHC	@PIT	W	10	9	83	70	2	1.5	31	19
154				2003	CHC	@PIT	L	6	10	83	71	2	1.5	32	18
155	Sat,	Sep	20	2003	CHC	@PIT	L	2	8	83	72	2	1.5	31	19
157	Tue,	Sep	23	2003	CHC	@CIN	W	6	0	85	72	1	-1.0	31	19
158	Wed,	Sep	24	2003	CHC	@CIN	W	8	0	86	72	1	-1.0	31	19
159	Thu,	Sep	25	2003	CHC	@CIN	L	7	9	86	73	1	0.0	31	19
160	Sat,	Sep	27	2003	CHC	PIT	W	4	2	87	73	1	-2.0	31	19
161				2003	CHC	PIT	W	7	2	88	73	1	-2.0	31	19
162	Sun,	Sep	28	2003	CHC	PIT	L	2	3	88	74	1	-1.0	31	19
149				2004	CHC	@FLA	L	2	5	83	66	2	15.0	31	19
152	Thu,	Sep	23	2004	CHC	@PIT	W	6	3	86	66	2	14.0	31	19
153	Fri,	Sep	24	2004	CHC	@NYM	W	2	1	87	66	2	14.0	31	19
154	Sat,	Sep	25	2004	CHC	@NYM	L	3	4	87	67	2	15.0	31	19
155	Sun,	Sep	26	2004	CHC	@NYM	L	2	3	87	68	2	16.0	31	19
100	Thu,	Jul	26	2007	CHC	@STL	L	1	11	53	47	2	2.0	31	19
101	Fri,	Jul	27	2007	CHC	@CIN	L	4	5	53	48	2	3.0	31	19
102	Sat,	Jul	28	2007	CHC	@CIN	W	8	1	54	48	2	1.5	31	19
103	Sun,	Jul	29	2007	CHC	@CIN	W	6	0	55	48	2	0.5	32	18
104	Mon,	Jul	30	2007	CHC	PHI	L	1	4	55	49	2	1.0	33	17
105	Tue,	Jul	31	2007	CHC	PHI	W	7	3	56	49	2	1.0	32	18
106	Wed,	Aug	1	2007	CHC	PHI	W	5	4	56	49	1	0.0	32	18

there are a lot of people out there right now who see this result as the most likely thing to have happened, perhaps even about the only thing that could've happened. they've utterly forgotten what they wrote and thought in early june, pretending now with the "corrective" goggles of desperate self-affirmation that they never really doubted the success of this team nor ever had any reason to.

at this i have to laugh. one runs across such eager revisionism constantly in my line of work -- the ease with which people cast themselves as prophetic on the flimsiest of pretenses and the most selective of memories always manages to amaze me.

another aspect of this same revisionism is the backward-looking presumption of inevitability -- because it happened this way, it was likely to or perhaps even had to. some people, after all, really did think the cubs were always going to be where they are today, and want to call themselves sensible. many of them would imagine themselves and their reasonableness to have been borne out by what has happened, regardless of how weirdly they came to arrive at their forecast.

this aspect of human nature, which we all come across a lot, is the confusion of validation by results with validity of method. a great many lines of deeply and even obviously flawed thinking will inevitably be "proven" by being "right" as measured only by an end which is somewhat polar -- the club either wins or loses, and right now every idiot in cubdom who thought this club was a winner is trumpeting his or her chosen methodology (or lack thereof) as prescient.

but the simple truth of what has happened to the cubs is that it could not have happened without very liberal and rare doses of good luck. not only have the cubs outperformed their pythagorean expectation since june 2 (at 256 scored and 199 allowed, they should have won 32 of 53 but have actually won 35) -- they have further managed to hit with a babip of .318 and allow just .274, meaning that their runs scored and allowed have been again heavily distorted by good fortune on balls in play, much as they were in april. this is to be compared to the milwaukee brewers, who have over the same span gone 27-25 while scoring 267 on a normal .298 babip but allowing 240 on a disadvantaged .306 babip.

how long can this last? in fact it may already by over -- the cubs have, after all, gone 4-3 in their last seven, scoring 32 and allowing 28. longer term, there's no intrinsic reason to think it should continue -- as noted previously, babip extremes show no permanence from half to half, and as much is very probably true from month to month. good examples are provided this year from the new york mets, whose extraordinary early season pitching babip has reverted to league mean and upward in subsequent months, and the florida marlins, who experienced the same phenomena to a lesser degree on the batting side. this is the normal course, and should serve as stark relief to drive home just how fortunate these cubs have been.

but a lot of that can now frankly be put aside. regardless of how bizarre or improbable, the improbable and bizarre has happened -- and the cubs are very happily on even ground with the brewers and facing a fair fight over the final two months. their schedules are similarly difficult; their injury situations to date are comparable, with only the exception of ben sheets who figures to return for the brewers in something like two or three weeks' time.

how should one handicap this race? dame fortune is going to play the prima donna's role, but on balance i would still have to say milwaukee.

remember the conditions for a rational hope? see point four -- ryan braun has continued to wreck the national league, and yovani gallardo has made sheets' injury into almost an afterthought. that has kept the brewers on an even keel, in spite of the cooling (see point five) of j.j. hardy, prince fielder, claudio vargas and particularly francisco cordero, whose ninth-inning collapses have handed the cubs 4 of the 7.5 games they've made up on his club since june 2.

the cubs, for their part, have stayed wonderfully healthy and watched as sean marshall has continued to put it all together. he has been the cubs' gallardo.

the difference over the last two months has really boiled down to luck on balls in play. will it be over the next two? i don't think, regardless of how much we might hope, that we can expect that to continue -- and if it doesn't, the cubs are still essentially a .500 ballclub, one which both scores and allows about 4.6-4.7 runs/game. milwaukee, on the other hand, has gone through extended periods of this season (indeed, the whole season in aggregate) with a neutral fate of balls in play and gone 58-50, allowing 4.49 ra/g and scoring 4.81 rs/g.

that is not a huge difference, and it could easily be overcome with some more good fortune -- but that's the baseline expectation. contra reportage such as baseball prospectus' playoff odds reports, which focus on runs scored and allowed but make no adjustment for babip and so show the cubs a slight favorite, i'd suspect the balance of expectation still tipped in the opposite direction.

but there's much unaccounted for in such a forecast, and an inspection of the elo-adjusted report -- which tries to weigh momentum rather than run differential -- reflects that the cubs have rolled like a freight train over the last nine weeks.

does that change the calculus? if so, by how much? i don't know and can't say -- but i sure as hell hope so. i like being in first place. i really like it, regardless of how the club got here. and i have to say, regardless of my left brain's chatter, my right brain is feeling pretty good about my september tickets.