I didn't see John Lannan and the Nationals shut down the Cubs yesterday, and listened only sparingly, but my ignorance was probably for the best. I always end up frustrated, as I suppose any reasonable fan will, when watching a no-name like Lannan fluster the Cubs so.

But these things are cyclical. Like a lawn in the spring, the Cubs grew tall and ambitious, with blades of grass yearning to reach the clouds, only to be cut down, edged neatly and weed-whacked thoroughly for the first -- and certainly not the last -- time this year. The normal way of things is no cause for worry. Given time, the Cub offense will be clicking once more.

* * * *

I wonder: What happened to those people who said the Cubs had no room for Alfonso Soriano in a lineup that was running like a fine-tuned, high-performance baseball-playing wonder machine and that has now, as was bound to happen, pulled off the road and into a gas station -- silently cursing, in its anthropomorphic way, the pushing-four-dollars-per-gallon gas prices -- to refill the tank and clear the windshield of the splattered remains of most of the National League?