6/15/08 @ Toronto; W 7-4; (45-25)

Happy Fathers Day! The Cubs winning a road series is as good a present as I could ask for. The Cubs were victorious today, 7-4, against the Blue Jays to take two out of three.

Reed Johnson got the opportunity to lead off again today and went 2 for 5 with two runs scored. Four Cubs tallied two hits in this game, Lee, Edmonds, and Hoffpauir being the other three.

Ted Lilly was superb today allowing only one hit through six innings. He struck out six Blue Jays as well. The bullpen allowed four runs against the Blue Jays but that wasn’t enough as the Cubs had jumped out to a 7-0 lead.

The scoring started in the third inning with Micah Hoffpauir. He doubled to lead off the inning. Reed Johnson singled to advance him, and then he scored on a single by Fukudome. Derek Lee singled to score Reed Johnson and Edmonds singled to plate Fukudome.

Chicago extended the lead in the seventh. Theriot singled and Reed Johnson doubled. With two outs, Derek singled to score both runners. That was followed by Aramis Ramirez’ first homer in three weeks.

The Chicago offense was better on the road than it has been in a while. They hit .274 in this three game series in which they faced a pretty good pitching staff. The Blue Jays have the third best ERA in the major leagues. The Cubs managed 15 runs over the weekend series.

It won’t get any easier as the Cubs head to Tampa Bay. They are scheduled to face Scott Kazmir and Andy Sonnanstine in the first two games. Those two have only five losses between them on the season. The Rays are also the owners of the third best home record in the majors.

Fukudome hit a little better in this road series and Jim Edmonds is hot. The Cubs will need everyone to be swinging well. I expect to see a similar lineup to today, with Johnson leading off and Fukudome hitting second. Geovany Soto has struggled over the last 30 days, hitting only .228. We need him to get going as well as Kosuke, who showed signs of improvement against the Jays.

The Cubs will head into this series twenty games above .500 at 45-25. The last time they were 20 games above this early was 1969, when they were 45-25. I hate making comparisons to the ’69 team, because that will be the battle cry for Cub haters later this year. That not withstanding, the Cubs didn’t get to twenty games over .500 in 1908 or 1945 until late July and even August.