I hesitate to say anything positive about the Cubs. After 20 years of fandom, it seems that whenever I start having faith in their abilities, it's when they falter, fail or otherwise blow it.

But here's something I've taken to heart. In previous seasons, they've had no problem getting up for the big games. They don't necessarily have an excellent record against the better teams in the league, but usually it's a winning record where they've at least competed with the Astros, Cardinals, Braves and Giants of the world.

But when they ended up playing the Brewers, Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates of the world, they seem to get creamed. Over the past few seasons, these are teams who are generally pretty bad, and I don't know what the deal was. These were teams that a contending team should beat, and the Cubs never could. It didn't help that the Cubs seemed to play the Brewers something like 90 times in a season, and they'd lose every game.

So it's a little comforting to see the Cubs beat a team like the Brewers. Not because I like seeing a first place team beat a last place team, but because these are the games that the Cubs need to win if they're going to contend. If you split a season series with, say, the Cardinals, but go 9-3 against the Brewers, you're 15-9, and that's okay. Because, seriously, the Brewers are some slaw.

Still, that 17 inning monster yesterday shows that Brewers seem to have no trouble getting up any time they play the Cubs. I tend to think Davey Lopes had something to do with that. He was old school.