Paul Hagen: Phillies would be wise to keep their foot on gas in NL East

Sometimes it seems that nothing is going right for the Cubs this year. A team many thought would be in the World Series wouldn't even make the playoffs if the season ended today. Ace righthander Carlos Zambrano, who has been on the DL three times since signing a 5-year, $91.5 million contract, admitted he's been "lazy" when it comes to staying in shape. Although he's denied it, there continues to be speculation that a fed-up manager Lou Piniella will walk away at the end of the year with 1 year remaining on his contract. Moaned general manager Jim Hendry: "We just haven't played up to our capabilities. It's kind of a mystery to all of us."

So maybe what happened last Sunday at Wrigley Field was inevitable. The start of the scheduled game against Pittsburgh was delayed because of an impending storm. Sure enough, it rained hard for about 20 minutes. After that, nothing. For 2 hours the Cubs waited for another front to arrive. It never did.

When the game was finally called, still without more bad weather, the crowd hooted and booed. "We saw some rain coming on the radar. We did the best we could," Piniella said.

That's just the kind of season it's been on Chicago's North Side.