With the season 1/3 over, many teams have been pleasant surprises (Rays, White Sox, Marlins) as well as quite a few disappointments (Tigers, Mets, Padres). Today we will look at the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers and compare their seasons this year to what happened last year.

While both the Brewers and the Cubs were projected to win the NL Central this year, only the Cubs have lived up to the hype so far. As of the night of May 29, both the Cubs and Brewers have played 54 games, exactly 1/3 of the season. As it stands, the Cubs are in first place with a 33-21 record (best in MLB) while the Brewers sit in 4th place at 26-28. I couldn't help but draw comparisons between this season and last year. In 2007, after 54 games, the Brewers sat atop the division with a 30-24 record countered by the Cubs 23-31 start, placing them in...wait for it...4th place. If this pace continued, the Brewers would have won the division handily with a 90 win season, while the Cubs would have fell well below .500 at 69-93. But it didn't continue that way. After 108 games (2/3 of the season), the Brewers only led the Cubs by one game with 58 wins. Finally, the season looked like the 2 horse race most experts predicted. As most baseball fans know, the Cubs ended up taking the division last year by 2 full games over the Brewers, a 9 game turnover in the final 2/3 of the season.

So what does this mean for the 2008 season? Well, both the Cubs and the Brewers are 3 games over their counterpart's record from last year. Obviously, this means nothing unless the Brewers surge like the Cubs did last year. Right now, the Cubs are unstoppable. While they didn't start off 24-10 like the Brewers did last season, they currently hold a better record than the Crew did at this point and they have been much more consistent. Rookie of the Year candidates Kosuke Fukudome and Geovany Soto have been very pleasant surprises for the team and have greatly helped the Cubs become the most explosive offense so far. In the back of the bullpen, Bob Howry, Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood have been nearly lights out, keeping the Cubs in close games and closing out games better than just about anyone ever has. Meanwhile, the Brewers show few signs of becoming a winning team again. Everybody knows they have the talent, but the loss of SP Yovani Gallardo has proved too far an obstacle to overcome for the rest of the pitching staff thus far. The slow starts of JJ Hardy, Bill Hall, Mike Cameron, Prince Fielder, etc. certainly have not helped one bit. Eric Gagne has been a complete disaster and found himself on the DL along with David Riske. Derrick Turnbow and Dave Bush were sent down to AAA due to poor performance (though Bush was called up after Gallardo's injury). Complimented by their inability to win on the road (13-18 this year), the first third of the season has proved to be a rough patch in the Brewers "return to relevance."

Despite all that, the point of the post is to prove to everyone that although the Cubs are hot and the Brewers are...well, not, it is still going to be close come September. Much of the Cubs' success can be contributed to the excellent starts for Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly. Dempster has put up absolute gaudy numbers, but there is much doubt that he can keep it up. So far, he has a 2.56 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, .189 BAA, and a .227 BABIP. All this compared to a career 4.70 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, .263 BAA, and a .306 BABIP suggests that a steep decline is in order. Lilly has put together another solid season, not counting his first 4 starts. Without them, he has put up a 3.53 ERA. With them it is at 5.23. There is nothing to suggest that he will be able to keep up the numbers he has since April 22 and he will probably have quite a few more starts similar to his early April numbers. The Cubs also are 10-13 on the road. While not terrible for road splits, it means they are 23-8 at home, hinting at a few more losses for the Cubs, at least in the near future while they play a few more road games.

As I already mentioned, all this is moot as long as the Brewers don't break the funk. Even though I said there are a few things that show a turnaround, they do exist. For one, starting pitchers have pitched deeper into ball games lately as opposed to earlier in the season when quality starts were a rare commodity. Obviously this helps out the bullpen, one that is lacking due to injuries and overworked minor league call-ups. Second, with a slumping offense, one has to imagine that soon they will return to form. Fielder will crush 40 more home runs, Hall and Weeks will raise their averages, and Hardy will knock in many RBIs from the 7-hole. Braun and Hart show no signs of slowing down and have been the pleasant mix of consistency that a fan can only hope for from more than 2 players. Another factor has to be the road/home splits again. The Brewers are 13-10 in the confines of Miller Park but just 13-18 on the road. With those extra home games, they might just be able to catch a few games on the Cubs. In accordance with all of that, the single player, the one that can make or break the entire point of this post should come as no surprise. Ben Sheets. His phenomenal season so far has brought back flashbacks of his 2004 All-Star campaign. This is why the Brewers have paid him to be their DL occupant rotation ace for all these years. He has 67 IP in 10 starts with a 2.93 ERA including 2 complete games (one shutout). However, Sheets has had his last 3 seasons cut short due to injuries. With Gallardo on the shelf, and an average to below-average rotation behind Sheets, an injury would render the Brewers season useless and allow the Cubs (or even the Cardinals; dare I say Astros?) to steal the division once again.