Sergio: This is your ass, here's a hole in the ground.  See, you don't know the difference!There is certainly one thing the Cubs are very good at. They’ve been aces at this since the turn of the last century. They sure know how to suck all of the hope out of a room, don’t they?

Apparently, the Cubs left Yankee Stadium sometime in the seventh inning on Friday night. It would have been nice if they’d told the rest of us so we could have done things more constructive than watch them. You know, like nailing our bottom lip to a coffee table or something.

The Cubs certainly look like they want the high point of the season to be the Saturday Red Sox game where they came back from four down and we watched Ryan Dempster hold on for dear life to a save. It’s the last save chance he’s had. It’s hard to get saves when your team is getting sodomized on a daily basis.

The Cubs are 9.5 games behind the Satanic Red Fowl and that ship has sailed. Two years in a row, the Cubs have punted one half of their playoff hopes before Summer officially begins.

The Wild Card? Of course they’ll be in the Wild Card race until the end. You know why? Because nobody wants the damn thing. The Cubs have lost six of their last seven games and you know how many games they’ve lost in the Wild Card standings?

One.

The Cubs have won four of their last 10 games. That’s bad. You know what? In the National League it makes them red hot. The Nationals are 7-3, the Cardinals are 6-4 and NOBODY else is over .500. The American League took the National League, bent them over their knee and spanked them like a four year old who just took a crayon to the dining room wall.

Of course, the Cubs aren’t done yet. Oh, no. Tonight they head to Miller Park to play the Brewers, who for the last month have been abysmal. So you know what that means? Yeah, a broom convention at Miller Park on Thursday. For the cheesers.

It’s one thing to lose six of seven games. Even good teams have a bad run. Look at the road trip the Yankees had before coming home to play the Cubs. They were 2-11 on it. Now they’ve won six in a row.

It’s the way the Cubs have been losing. It’s like Don Baylor’s back in the building. They’re getting hammered. At least last year when they lost they always did it by one run. They fooled you into thinking they had a shot and then Moises would pass out between second and third and get tagged out, or Sammy would hit one deep to left, do the hop and watch a guy catch it three feet in front of the warning track.

In this run of sterling baseball the Cubs have been getting an early lead, then dousing themselves with kerosene and jumping in campfires.

Cliff Bartosh even became the first Cub since our old All My Children cameo buddy Ron Mahay to give up homers in four straight games. He can go for five (Mahay did it) tonight, but he’d better hurry, because he’s likely to get waived after the game to make room for the Poi Boy, Jerome Williams. See, the Cubs wanted to send Bartosh down to AAA a few weeks ago, but he’s out of options and they were afraid they’d lose him to another team. But their plan has worked great. He’s been so terrible nobody will claim him. Brilliant! Have fun in Des Moines, Cliff. Most of your bullpen will be joining you shortly.

If Joe Borowski were a horse, he’d be a clydesdale. No, that’s not where I was going with that. Let’s try that again.

If Joe Borowski were a horse, you’d shoot him.

It’s over. He’s got less than nothing. A batting tee would have a lower ERA than Joe has had since his glorious return from the DL.

Did anybody not think Derek Jeter was going to hit a grand slam on Saturday? Anybody?

Joe, we had some good times. But the beginning of your Cubs career (remember that spot start against the Giants in 2001?) and the end of your career aren’t going to be two of them. I’m glad you got paid because you deserved it after the 2002 and 2003 seasons. But please go away now. If you really want to help, sign with the Braves, Marlins or Phillies.

Speaking of the bullpen, I think that Dusty’s decision to open the seventh with Carlos on Friday night cost the Cubs two games. Carlos was lucky to have gotten through six with the lead, why push it? Hank White had come through, giving the Cubs a two run lead. Use Wuertz to start the seventh, then some combination of Wuertz-Wellemeyer-Dempster in the eighth and Dempster in the ninth. Instead, Dusty lets Carlos start the inning. He got one out, then Sheffield hit one that nearly went through the left field wall. Will Ohman came in and crapped his pants, and by the time Wuertz came in the game was over and the whole team, including him, were completely rattled. The Cubs played Saturday like it was still Friday night. Yesterday they just were bad.

Neifi Perez had a quite a day yesterday. The game turned in the fourth inning when with one out and the speedy Jason Giambi on first, Bernie Williams hit a routine double play ball to short. Only Neifi wasn’t there, he was covering second because Giambi was running on the pitch. That wasn’t Neifi’s fault. But it was just the beginning.

A couple innings later with the bases juiced and A-Rod up, Neifi managed to play a softly hit liner, right at him, into an RBI single. He then officially booted one later in the game because he felt cheated that he hadn’t gotten an error yet. Oh, and he went 0-5 at the plate and his batting average has dropped a full 40 points in two weeks. I guess it’s time to take down the Neifi for All-Star banner, eh?

I spent part of the game yesterday driving so I tuned in the Yankees crew on XM Radio. John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. Oh, how the Yankee fans deserve these two nitwits. But Sterling had his moments.

Early in the game he said, “I was looking at Corey Patterson’s on base average and it’s .289, and that’s just terrible. The Yankees have four guys over or right at .400 and Corey is under .300. That’s terrible.”

Then towards the end of the game he said, “The Cubs have gotten an 0-8 from the first two batters in their lineup, Neifi Perez and Todd Hollandsworth. They don’t have anybody on this team who can get on base for a pretty good 3-4-5 of Derrek Lee, Jeromy Burnitz and Aramis Ramirez. You know, if they had a leadoff hitter, this is a pretty good team.”

Even John Sterling, after three days, has a clue as to what’s wrong with this team.

The starting pitching has been shaky for a full week, but we know over the long haul, it’s pretty good. The poor starts have meant more innings for the bullpen and that’s a recipe for disaster. But this slump has been caused by horrible offense. The only game they won last week was a Sergio Meat Tray shutout. Hard to lose those shutouts.

In another year a 34-33 record on June 20 with the Cardinals running away would have you out of it, but the rest of the National League hasn’t let the Cubs go yet. It’s not too late to find an outfielder who can get his ass on base. He doesn’t have to be a base stealer. He just has to have a knack for not being out in almost 40 percent of his at bats.

If you don’t do that. Or if you trade for a redundant part (Preston Wilson, anyone?) nothing’s going to get fixed. All that’s going to happen is that Mark Prior and Kerry Wood are going to come back and you’re going to start losing games 5-3 and 4-2 instead of 9-1.

You know, you could always bat Todd Walker first…oh, wait, no that doesn’t fit in with our manager’s hackneyed way of filling out a lineup card.

In the meantime, you could always try this lineup:

2b Walker
c Barrett
1b Lee
3b Ramirez
rf Burnitz
lf Hollandsworth
cf Patterson
ss Neifi

Tell you what, Dusty. Try it in Milwaukee for four days. What do you have to lose, other than four more games, that most people expect you will anyway?

As for a trade? Has a team ever needed one more than this one does right now? There’s still time to fix it. But not fixing it two weeks ago has severely cut into how much time you have left.