Cubs Emotion-o-Meter 10/1 Edition: Playoffs Game #1

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com



Just to make sure everyone is awake out there in Cubland we're gonna do a brief word puzzle. What popular phrase do these three pictures make?





I'm sure you were able to figure it out. But I just wanted to make sure you were intellectually limber while getting focused for the Cubs game tonight.

Tonight's game (6:30 ET on TBS) is the one that scares me the most, from a Cubs fan's perspective. The Cubs starter is Ryan Dempster, and the Dodgers send Derek Lowe to the mound. Righty Derek Lowe is pitching against a Cubs lineup that has a lot of right-handed hitters, and it's a lineup that might even be a bit rusty after having rested so many of its big hitters for so long. Lowe has had success against the Cubs in the past few years, and if he can keep the Cubs righties off-balance, it could possibly set the tone for the series, much like what happened with Brandon Webb and the Cubs last post season. In that series the Cubs were anemic offensively and never got the ball rolling. A good pitching performance can put an entire team in a slump for a few games after that.

That being said, Dempster is an absolute beast. His numbers are consistently better than Lowe's all season, despite Dempster pitching in a hitter's park, and Lowe pitching in a pitcher's park. Dempster has also came up biggest for the Cubs when it has mattered most all season, and he'll have the unanimous backing of the crowd which will probably sound like they have have been drinking coffee, snorting coke, smoking meth and contracting rabies, collectively, for the last 10 hours. I'm not worried about Dempster showing up, but I am mildly concerned that the Cubs' bats won't.

But I still like the Cubs to win. Ordinarily, I don't try to predict the score but since I know so many of my readers are gamblers and bet the over/under I'll venture a guess tonight, since it's the playoffs: Cubs 87, Dodgers, 2.