Four games into a telling seven-game road trip, the Cubs are now 1-3, Monday night's miserable defeat at Shea marking the latest heartbreak.

The Cubs seem to have mastered the two-out rally, that is, allowing the two-out rally. What tonight's effort lacked in quantity--it may be awhile before the Cubs figure out how to allow more two-out runs than Philly's six-run bonanza in Saturday's seventh inning--it made up for in sheer drama. You can't get more dramatic than when losing the game, right?

The thought that Derrek Lee's neck injury might be serious is unspeakably distasteful, so I won't speak of it. (The sight of Mark DeRosa playing first base stopped being funny around the time Endy Chavez collided with DeRosa's arm on the way to the bag.)

Tuesday night, Carlos Zambrano, who has had only one, maybe two, good starts goes up against the Mets' John Maine, who's had only one, maybe two, poor starts.

It's time for our stopper to start a turnaround.