Well, a would-be season-changing sweep at home is followed by three offensive choke jobs on the road. Ladies and gents, your 2009 Chicago Cubs.

1-for-15 with runners in scoring position last night? 3 runs on 11 hits? 2 of those runs scored on outs? Abominable. Now the Cubs are actually giving themselves a surplus of opportunities and still shooting themselves in the foot -- nay, jabbing themselves in the foot with a pocket knife -- or something that would definitely imply there was no accident or coincidence. You should never have 29 hits in a three-game span and score just 7 runs.

Sure, we could keep pointing at the same old culprits: Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, etc. But the truth of the matter is, they're either a bad team under pressure or just really inconsistent on offense. Because truthfully, they're playing better baseball on offense than they were before the brief winning streak. 

In honor the Cubs winning three and losing three in a row, I figure another 3 up, 3 down is in order.

3 Up

• Geovany Soto's power. Sure, the consistency isn't there yet (his average still sits at .228) but tacking on another home run tonight proves he's got the big swing back. Now the problem remains that he's not doing it with enough people on base. Just one of his five home runs this month wasn't a solo shot.
• Micah Hoffpauir in the clutch. Yes, he struck out with the bases loaded, but if you were watching, he came within inches of clearing them with a jack down the right field line. Nevertheless, he's had 5 hits result in 4 RBI in the last handful of games. That's a ratio that probably blows every other player on this team out of the water.
• Aramis Ramirez. Yup. Every day he gets closer to coming back, the better off this team is.

3 Down

• Mike Fontenot. The pocket rocket is slumping for the second time this season, horrific timing seeing as he was hitting when the Cubs weren't scoring and now that they should be scoring, he's not. Lou hit him 9th in the lineup yesterday and sadly, going 3 for his last 28, he deserves it. The sooner the Cubs get Ramirez back and the sooner they can platoon Fontenot with Andres Blanco at second, the better off they'll be.
• Kevin Gregg. I wanted to go easy on the guy. After all, he'd been great lately and the Cubs would be in no better shape with Kerry Wood right now, but the problem is more that he's giving up these leads with home runs. Your closer should never get taken out of the park with regularity. Gregg has served up 6 in 32 innings. Last year for the Marlins he gave up 3 all season in twice as many innings. The most he's ever given up in a season is 10. If Carlos Marmol didn't walk people like dogs in the summer, he would be perfect, but Gregg is the obvious choice for this team right now.
• Soriano. Just because I said it's not time to play the blame game doesn't mean he's off the hook. Until he can settle the discrepancy between what he's paid to do and what he's doing, he's on the down list, which means he could be there a really long time.