Sometimes Cub fans embarrass me.  Actually this is pretty typical -- if you are a Cub fan, no matter how idiotic you may act, sooner or later you'll encounter some other Cub fan who makes your face burn an embarrassing shade of red, leaving you to apologize to the non-Cub-fans around you.  "We're not all like that.  That guy's nuts."

Every once in a while, Goat Reader Madisoncubaholic goes a little loony and posts a few rants in the ShoutBox.  The most recent embarrassment: Look at that. Outfielders that can run, hit and catch the ball. Making
contact not just swinging for the fence everytime. Sorry-ass-ano go to
hell!  Oh wait I forgot he can carry a team. (For three weeks) Post-season not so much. Sabbathia as big if not bigger than Zambrano. One is an ace
showing up in a big game the other is an ass who never won a playoff
game  Bitter? Yes ! Jealous ? Yes ! Call in the air strike on Wrigley. Let's just nuke it and start all over.

Fantastic.  Other blogs would probably ban Madisoncubunatic, but not ours.  Look at it this way -- had I not read those compelling words, I might not be blogging this morning!

Let's address the issues rationally:

The first: Alfonso Soriano is a piece of crap who cannot hit in the playoffs and is defensively terrible.  Also, we shall belittle him by claiming that his typical end-season appearance of having been successful stems from 3 weeks of tremendous productivity.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Soriano is not a Gold Glover, never will be.  But before he spent an entire season hampered by a knee injury that required he be shut down and surgeoned -- and what ever happened to respecting and liking a player who'll compete while injured, even if the results aren't what we were hoping for* -- he had a plus arm in the outfield which more than made up for poor defensive mechanics.  Still, I'll agree that somebody should convince him to use both hands out there.

(*This is like criticizing Willis Reed because, sure, he scored the first 4 points of that game but his defense was atrocious, he refused to hustle up and down the court, and he didn't score again that night!  Hey, douchebag, maybe appreciate whatever production you get from your dramatically injured star player!)

Second, it is mathematically impossible to have a shitty season, but to turn out looking like gold based on three weeks of production.  The reality of it is that he's usually pretty good, with flashes of legendary brilliance, who often plays three or four weeks of totally mediocre baseball a year. 

Third, and this is a point I want to make to all Cub fans who seem to feel otherwise: "clutch" -- and post season performances in general -- is subjective.  We're watching an anti-clutch, can't-perform multi-katrillionaire light it up for the Yankees right now.  This is a guy who was 7 for his last 34 in the playoffs before this year, with 1 double, 1 homer, and 1 RBI over those three appearances.  Now they're cleverly calling A-Rod "Mr. Clutch."  It's about as likely that Aramis Ramirez or, yes, even Alfonso Soriano will someday, at some point, hit the crap out of the ball in October.

Second point - Carlos Zambrano sucks compared to CC Sabathia, who's a big game pitcher.

Let's ignore that Sabathia's career ERA in the playoffs -- including this season, in which he has indeed been dominant -- is 5.45 and, including his 2 wins this season, his record is 4-3.  (Actually this further supports my take that even shitty post season players can look golden once or twice in their careers.)

I guess Madisoncubunatic wants Carlos to not only keep his team in the game -- which he's done the last two playoff appearances he's made -- but he also expects Carlos to supply all the offense -- since the Cubs offense was dead the last two times he's pitched -- and he wants Carlos to prevent the defense from having bungling errors.  Or have we already forgotten the way Theriot, Ramirez, Lee, and yes, Mark DeRosa all failed to do their jobs and field cleanly during that exceedingly forgettable Cubs-Dodgers game last year?

So, more sour grapes for Madison?  Of course.  Crazed rantings that humiliate sane Cub fans?  Certainly.

But it's October.  We're bored.  There's nothing going on.  I think we could also characterize this as expected.