Back from London and the Cubs need bats more than ever

And, can you pay extra for the new Marquee streaming service to ONLY get the games?

The Cubs are back from London where they split a Saturday and Sunday pair of games with the Cardinals. They should have won both because frankly, the Cardinals continued their season long run of poor play, but Trey the third’s wild adventure at first base in the second inning on Sunday and a blister on Marcus Stroman’s throwing hand conspired for them to blow a 4-0 lead.

The Cubs recent run of strong play has them two games under .500, which would leave them 12.5 games out if they played in the NL East and 8.5 out in the NL West, but in the Central they’re in third place but just three games behind the Reds and 2.5 behind the Brewers.

The Reds, with all of their exciting young players, have almost no chance of staying on top of the division because they just can’t pitch. They are 13th (of 15) in the NL in hits allowed, 12th in runs and earned runs allowed, second to last in homers allowed and 13th in walks allowed. They are fifth in runs scored on offense and trending up, but over the long haul you’ve got to get somebody out.

The Brewers have their own issues. Most of their rotation has been hurt in the first half, and not all of them are coming back. But mostly, they still can’t hit. They are 15th in runs scored, hits, doubles, batting average, on base average and slugging. LAST in all of those things. They’re only third to last in strikeouts though, so congrats!

So here are the Cubs, sitting there with a positively mediocre roster and a slightly less than mediocre record and for all of the roster’s faults (and they are numerous), there’s just no good reason they shouldn’t win the division.

I mean, there are reasons, just not good reasons.