Monday, April 5, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m. Pacific
 

AL West AL Central AL East NL West NL Central 1. Chicago Cubs 2. Houston Astros 3. St. Louis Cardinals 4. Cincinnati Reds 5. Milwaukee Brewers 6. Pittsburgh Pirates NL East Baseball '04 main

1. Chicago Cubs
 
He's here: RHP Greg Maddux, 1B Derrek Lee, RHP LaTroy Hawkins, C Michael Barrett, 2B Todd Walker, LHP Kent Mercker, OF Todd Hollandsworth.

He's outta here: OF Kenny Lofton (Yankees), 1B Eric Karros (Oakland), 1B Hee Seop Choi (Florida), C Damian Miller (Oakland), RHP Antonio Alfonseca (Atlanta), LHP Shawn Estes (Colorado), 1B Randall Simon (Pittsburgh).

Ranking the rotation: 1st in the division, 1st overall. Other than Mark Prior's injury, hard to find anything not to like about a rotation with a sure Hall of Famer (Greg Maddux) and a couple of possible future Hall of Famers.

Written in Stone: Seldom have the Cubs appeared closer to that ever-elusive World Series championship than they are now, with the best rotation in baseball (on paper) and an impressive lineup augmented by the addition of Derrek Lee and return of Corey Patterson. But as should be hauntingly apparent by now, in the wake of Steve Bartman and last year's NLCS collapse, the Cubbies have other forces at work against them. Already, budding superstar Prior is battling Achilles and elbow injuries that will take him out of commission this month, at least. Prior, Kerry Wood and the rest of the Cubs' hard throwers will benefit from the savvy of Maddux, who has another big year or three left in him. Hawkins helps the bullpen, but Joe Borowski , whose velocity was noticeably down in spring training, could be a weak link as closer. GM Jim Hendry deserves credit for deciding to go for it now, and Dusty Baker will try to take the final step, at last.

Lineup card

P Hitters Avg. HR RBI 2B Mark Grudzielanek .314 3 38 CF Corey Patterson .298 13 55 RF Sammy Sosa .279 40 103 LF Moises Alou .280 22 91 1B Derrek Lee .271 31 92 3B Aramis Ramirez .274 27 106 SS Alex Gonzalez .228 20 59 C Michael Barrett .208 10 30

TH Starters W-L ERA SO RH Kerry Wood 14-11 3.20 266 RH Greg Maddux 16-11 3.96 124 RH Matt Clement 14-12 4.11 171 RH Carlos Zambrano 13-11 3.11 168 RH Sergio Mitre* 7-9 3.34 128   TH Closer W-L ERA SV RH Joe Borowski 2-2 2.63 33

*Minor-league stats