Mr. Sabathia pitches for Brats and Beer

It’s been six weeks leading up to this column. It’s been quite a nice respite, because the kid has been working hard and enjoying the summer. I flew back for the Cubs sweep over the White Sox at Wrigley. Dirty and I witnessed a nine-run inning almost exactly a year to the day after we witnessed “The Aramis Game” so that's some good mojo there. I moved into my new place and got a new set of golf clubs. I’m going to be a groomsman in my boy Kanedawg’s wedding next month. The Bulls picked Derrick Rose and I couldn’t be happier about that fact. I’ve been gone from these pages for a while because my life has been a good, healthy, honest busy. But tonight, I really felt compelled to write about something... so now, I fear the worst…

It’s basically official that C.C. Sabathia will be a Brewer for the rest of the season. The Brewers, in the past 6 weeks have gone from 4 games under .500 (and 6 games back) to 10 games over .500 (and 3.5 games back). Over that same span, the Cubs have gone 24-15 and LOST 2.5 GAMES in the NL Central.

Alright, I know the Cardinals are still in the mix, but excuse me for not taking them seriously. The odds of Kyle Lohse, Braden Looper, Todd Wellemeyer, Adam Wainwright and Joel Pineiro keeping this type of production going during a stressful September is remarkably low. Here are their K/9 rates so far and tell me I’m wrong: 4.49, 4.15, 6.68, 6.09, 4.76. Those numbers are telling me that a ton of things are going right for them in the field. We’ll see though.

The Brewers, however, terrify me. They have basically exclaimed that they are making a charge for this year. Matt LaPorta was their right fielder for the future and they shipped him off for 12 weeks from the 2007 AL Cy Young winner. The Sheets/Sabathia combination is frightening down the stretch, but even more frightening for Benny should be the prospect of both of them being free agents at the end of the year. Outside of the Rays, nobody has a deeper farm system and I could see them going for broke and picking up another solid middle reliever before the deadline. Basically, with this move, they are telling the rest of the NL Central, "It's on. Act accordingly."

The Cubbies have gone 6-8 in Big Z’s absence but now he’s back and winning baseball games. Soriano should be getting back shortly after the All-Star break and the wheels continue to turn. I’m anticipating another furious finish similar to last year where the victor won’t be decided until the final weekend of the season. However, unlike last year, I feel like second place in the NL Central will be good enough to play into October. I'm trying to wrap my head around this pennant chase during the Olympics and NFL tune-ups and quite honestly, I'm already losing sleep.

Mahalo. It's good to be back.