First of all, I don't know who commandeered my computer earlier in the week to throw up a post (which I have since deleted) predicting that the Cubs would be at least two games behind the Brewers by the time they hit St. Louis and that the Cardinals would probably knock the Cubs out of the race altogether by Sunday night.

Maybe one of the kids was screwing around with the blog. I'll punish both of them when they get up in the morning, just in case.

By now you know about tonight's drama and the Cubs' newly minted one-and-a-half-game lead. I caught only a few minutes of the game, early on, before Carlos' excellence tonight was fully established and long before Ryan Dempster made like LaTroy Hawkins and had to be bailed out by Bob Howry.

I was able to catch David Kaplan's post-game show on WGN Radio, however. Most interesting was Lou's press conference, in which he brushed off Dempster's rough outing as simply being one of those nights when a pitcher doesn't have his usual stuff and another example of how, as Piniella sees it, a closer can falter when he's thrust into a non-save situation. Something about not working off the usual amount of adrenaline, as I recall Lou's analysis.

The main thing is that per the manager, if the Cubs find themselves in a save situation tomorrow, Lou will be handing the ball to Ryan Dempster.

One other aspect of the Kaplan show was striking to me: every person who called in to celebrate the victory pointed out that at no time this season did they ever doubt that the Cubs would eventually seize control of the National League Central. Isn't that something?! All of those clairvoyant baseball fans phoning in to the same radio show on the same evening.

I'm fortunate to have tuned in.