One month in: A look at the NL Central

I went through each division before the season started and give you my predictions and those predictions still stand for the most part.

To Recap, here's who I picked for each division followed by a dark horse candidate:

AL East: Boston Red Sox as the favorite with the Tampa Rays as the dark horse.

AL Central: Chicago White Sox as the favorite with the Kansas City Royals as the dark horse.

AL West: L.A. Angels as the favorite with the Oakland A's as the dark horse.

Wild Card: New York Yankees as the favorite with the Oakland A's as the dark horse.

NL East: New York Mets as the favorite with the Florida Marlins as the dark horse.

NL Central: Chicago Cubs as the favorite with the Milwaukee Brewers as the dark horse.

NL West: L.A. Dodgers as the favorite with the San Francisco Giants as the dark horse.

NL Wild Card: Fightin' Phils as the favorite with the Arizona Diamondbacks as the dark horse.


Alright, so after that long winded rehash where do we stand a month into the season? Well, let's first star with a post about the NL Central.

Like any sane person, I picked the Cubs to win the division en route to their third straight post season appearance. Sadly, sanity has not prevailed as the St. Louis Cardinals sit comfortably in first place without former ace Chris Carpenter.

Chicago is 3.5 games back of the Redbirds with the Brew Crew a half game behind the Cubs.

The Cubs are still the pick to click in the division but the two-way battle between Chicago and Milwaukee is turning into a three-horse race with a potential wild card berth as a compensation package for not winning the division..

Catcher Geovany Soto needs to get his act together and start hitting while third baseman Aramis Ramirez continues to recover from a sore left calf.

Ryan Dempster, he of the one-year wonder starter status, is back to his old mediocre ways again. He has an ERA of 5.40 and his strikeout to walk ratio is nearly equal. Yikes.

The bullpen has been a mess for the Cubs as well and with Neal Cotts as your primary lefty, things are going to be ugly.

So what can the Cubs do? Wait this out and hope Jim Hendry makes a move to acquire a legit lefty out of the bullpen.

The Brewers on the other hand must be wishing they dealt shortstop J.J. Hardy in the much talked about potential deal with the Giants for pitcher Matt Cain.

Hardy is batting .160, having killed of his trade value at the moment, while Cain has an ERA of 3.01.

Yovanni Gallardo is anchoring the pitching staff and Braden Looper's 3.16 ERA has been an early surprise but Milwaukee is still in need of another pitcher to fill the void left by both Ben Sheets and CC Sabathia's departures.

The answer to the pitching problems is simple send third baseman Bill Hall, Hardy and a slew of prospects to the San Diego Padres for Jake Peavy and Chris Young. This will fortify the Brewers rotation into a serious contender and give the Padres a legit shortstop and a third baseman along with a beavy of prospects from the talent rich Brewers system.

Milwaukee could then call up Mat Gamel to play third base and make Alicedes Escobar its full-time shortstop.

San Diego could either flip Hall again for more prospects or keep him and move him to right field as the replacement for an aging Brian Giles.