As I sit down to write this, Jake Peavy, Randy Johnson, Milton Bradley, Bobby Abreu and Raul Ibanez are not Chicago Cubs.

Mark DeRosa is not a Philadelphia Phillie.

Felix Pie is not a Baltimore Oriole.

Ronny Cedeno, Jason Marquis, Kevin Hart, Michael Wuertz, Angel Guzman and Sean Marshall are not San Diego Padres.

Kerry Wood is not a Cleveland Indian.

And though it falls outside the normal purview of this blog, I am proud to point out that I did not vote to keep the State of Illinois' Chief Narcissist and Sociopath in office the last time he ran.

With Wednesday's one-sided loss at Cincinnati, the Cubs have dropped 9 of 13 games and have now failed to win any one of their last five series.

The dark time began two weeks ago, during the second of two games in Colorado. In the last of the eighth inning, an error by Ryan Theriot opened the door to a two-run Rockies rally, a 4-2 Cub defeat, and a split of the teams' two-game set. Since then, the Cubs have dropped two of three each to the Nationals, Brewers, Cardinals, and Reds.

As for today's mess, Jon Lieber became only the second Cub pitcher ever to serve up four home run balls in one inning. (Phil Norton was the other, back in 2000.) That's bad enough, but the fact that two of the longballs were hit by former Cubs Paul Bako and Jerry Hairston, Jr.—Bako's was a 400-foot-plus shot—really underscores how weak Lieber's performance was.

Lou Piniella was non-commital after the game regarding Lieber's possible future in the starting rotation.

"We don't need to make a decision right now. We'll think about it and see what we can do."

With Scott Eyre coming off the DL this weekend, my guess is that Sean Marshall will get the ball the next time the fifth spot in the rotation rolls around.

And speaking of fifth starters, the Cubs' third-starter-turned-fifth-starter-turned-Iowa-Cubs-starter, Rich Hill, had his first minor league outing Tuesday night. As Mike Wellman reports at The Cub Reporter, it wasn't great.

It was frustrating to see the Cubs lose the first two in Philadelphia and when they went down 1-0 on Sunday, pessimist that I am, I figured they would be swept in Philly, leaving them 6-6 for the year, but just 1-5 against good teams (Milwaukee and the Phillies) and 5-1 against not-so-good teams (Houston and Pittsburgh).

Now we can all agree that 4-2 is a good road trip, especially when three of the games are against a team, who, even without NL MVP Jimmy Rollins on the field, puts together quite a formidable lineup.

The Cubs' starting pitching obviously has to stabilize. Jason Marquis was one big hit from getting knocked out of Sunday's game much earlier than his eventual departure (5 IP, 2 runs). In comparison to Ted Lilly's third straight awful outing on Saturday night (4 1/3 IP, 5 runs), Marquis' effort was not so bad.

Rich Hill was officially banished to the bullpen for the Philadelphia series, though he never pitched in that role, and Sean Marshall, the obvious replacement if Hill were to lose his starting spot, was called upon both Friday and Sunday and looked good.

Marshall has appeared three times since his recall from Iowa and has not been scored upon. But no matter how well Marshall pitches, he is not going to be able to replace the two most struggling pitchers in the rotation, Hill and Lilly.

Maybe we're going to need all of that supposed pitching depth (Marshall, Jon Lieber, Sean Gallagher, etc.) after all.

Update: Gordon Wittenmyer reports that for now, Hill will become the nominal fifth starter and the first four starters will be kept on rotation with the fifth spot being skipped as the schedule dictates.