Well I’m finally off the blogging DL. After taking 5 exams in 7 days and selling all my textbooks for “food” money, my finals hell week is over and I’m back in the game. Suck on that Thomas Hobbes and John Locke (No, I’m not a philosophy major but these two ass-jackets caused me more problems than necessary).

So what happened while I was gone?

Hmmm let’s see…Soriano still couldn’t hit a beach ball with a surf board…Rich Hill is in Iowa…Lieber got rocked…oh dear God. What has been going around here?!?!

Wait, what’s that? It gets even better? The Cubs now take their slumpy-ish play back home to face-off against the D-Backs, baseball’s best team. $#&*&$^*#()@_#)(&)$&!!!

My last memory of the D-Backs is a little blurry but I seem to remember me sitting in a bar with my “friends” (Again, I use that term loosely because they are Cardinals fans) and me getting made fun of by a tall, skinny blonde girl for wearing an Aramis Ramirez jersey as I watched the Cubs get swept out of the playoffs. Yeah, it went something like that.

While I’m sure there will be a series preview coming up soon, I’d just like to get my duo copper Lincoln’s in and say that this might be the most important series for the Cubs all regular season. Yes, I know the season is only 34 games old and there is A TON of baseball still to be played, but this weekend is going to tell us a lot.

Obviously the Cubs have been in a bit of a rut lately, and I think we are about to see what this team has got physically and mentally.

Granted the Cubs will not see Brandon Webb this weekend, but the Diamondbacks are the best team in the majors (23-12) and there is no doubt in my mind that this is a team the Cubs must beat to get to the World Series whether it is now, July, or October. They need to prove it to themselves and the fans that they can play with the best in baseball.

This is also a great chance to build some momentum with Lilly, Dempster, and Zambrano all scheduled to pitch. These are the rotation’s top three guys and they’ll have a chance to prove they can pitch in the clutch. If there was ever a time when this team needed some strong pitching performances to gain confidence, then it’s going to be this weekend.

Of course the larger theme here is getting out of their funk. The Cubs have been awful lately and it doesn’t matter if they are playing the Diamondbacks or the Pirates, they need to turn it around and win a series.

I have some high hopes for this weekend. No tests, no projects, no dead philosophers. Just some exciting playoff-like baseball…and that whole graduation thing.