A few thoughts....

Nice recovery from Wood last night, what started out as a potential Coors Field ERA massacre, turned out to be a hell of a good start. Cubs offense had one big inning and then took the rest of the game off to watch Woods pitch apparently and catch all the pop-ups the Rockies were hitting into.

A couple of other observations....

Why is Corey Patterson hitting leadoff? I can hope it will only be against lefties as he's hit them rather well this year(small sample size ALERT, small sample size ALERT), Unless it's some exercise in patience for Patterson so he learns to take some pitches. If he magically learns to get on base at .370-.400 clip (hell I'd take .350) and with Garciaparra's ability to put ball in play and you have the makings of the 1984 Daily Double(of course Sandberg probably should have been batting 3rd but that's another story). Anyway make it stop Baker and put Walker back up there where he belongs(lefties or righties).

Speaking of Walker, he was in the on-deck circle in the 9th for Wood, but for some reason with only a 2 run lead in the 9th at Coors, Baker then chose Goodwin. Way to give up an out Baker.

Nice to see a guy who still chokes up on the bat in Aaron Miles....a lost art. I think Grudz still does it once in awhile but in my experience it certainly does cut down on strikeouts. I did play some baseball back in my day (like high school) and I went from a .200 hitter to a .300 hitter when I changed two things. #1)Choked up with 2 strikes and #2)stopped pressing and decided I was just going to have fun. #2 definitely had more to do with it than #1, but with guys on base putting the ball in play has its virtues particularly if you're not a big power hitter, which I was not. I don't want to see Sosa start doing it, but if your A. Miles it's definitely a good idea. You keep hitting .300 in this league and you'll always have a job. That being said, he doesn't walk a whole lot and has no power and apparently has had a big boost from Coors Field, but he'll definitely find a job with let's say the Anaheim Angels one day.

Big Z goes today and tries to keep his ERA in tact at Coors. A Cubs sweep is close to necessary as the next 2 weeks brings a bunch of games with the West and the teams we're directly competing with for the Wild Card.