Ted Lilly is in fact the Cubs MVP

With my apologies to Randy Wells (who has been really good this season) there really isn't much question who the Cubs MVP is. Ted Lilly improved his record to 9-6 with an 8 inning 4 hit 1 run showing. It happened to be number 100 for his career. Here's to his next 100 all coming as a Cub. In Minnesota 141 wins for a team gets your number retired. 

The offense got off to a quick start against Brad Thompson. Milton Bradley got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and then Jeff Baker got that elusive two-out RBI single to make it 3-0. An Aramis groundout and Soriano double in the fifth scored the other two Cubs runs.

Everything looked great going into the ninth when Carlos Marmol decided not to give the Cubs a stress-free day. After giving up a single to Albert and a walk to Ludwick Marmol got Chris Duncan to ground into the game ending double play but the umpire decided he wasn't done playing yet. A Yaider Molina single and a WILD pitch later, the Cubs brought in Kevin Gregg to get Skip Shumaker to strikeout. 

Now Lou has to be smarter with his pitchers. Ted was cruising through that lineup, and only had 103 pitches, meaning he wouldn't have had an issue finishing the game. Marmol is already overused as it is. 45 appearances this season already, so lets not use him with a 4 run lead and needing 3 outs. Kevin Gregg is also being used a bit too much, but he pretty much had to come in. Lou needs to be smart with the bullpen. Guzman, Marshall, Marmol, and Gregg are all good pitchers, but they can't be the only ones used. 

Z and Randy Wells will get the starts against Kyle Loshe and Adam Wainwright for the big double header. Odds are it will be a split, but who knows if I couldn't pick Ted I would pick these two to pitch in the double header.