Ever since the Cubs were swept out of the NLDS by the Dodgers on Saturday night, I've heard quite a few different excuses for their postseason collapse. First and foremost, there's the idiotic ones about the team being cursed, which we all know is a bunch of crap. Then there are some who just think that the team collapsed under the weight of a 100-year title drought.

While some of the excuses are viable, and others are just plain dumb, there's one explanation for the Cubs failures that rules the roost of ridiculousness, and it comes from left fielder Alfonso Soriano.

"Yeah, it's tough," he said. "We tried, but it just didn't happen. We played all year like a very good team and we expected a little bit more, but it didn't happen.

"We're a very good team for [162] games, but we don't do nothing after that. That's the difference. We're not put together for [a short series]."

That could honestly be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, and keep in mind that I have to listen to myself talk 24 hours a day.

The Cubs aren't built for a short series? That's funny, because I always thought that the most important part of a team in a short series was their starting rotation, and last I checked the Cubs had a pretty good one. Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, Rich Harden, and Ted Lilly seem like a rotation that's built for a short series to me.

I mean, isn't the entire regular season just a whole lot of short series packaged together? They did pretty well there, didn't they?

Hey, I'm as panicked as anyone else. I had to get counseling via gchat last night from a Red Sox fan, our MLB editor Andrew Johnson. We did discuss, at length, one simple reality ... for a die-hard fan, losing in baseball sucks far more than in other sports.

For six months of your year, you live and breathe baseball. The games aren't just once a week like in football, or even three to four times a week as in basketball. Nope, baseball is almost every single day throughout half of every year. Andrew made an apt comparison ... the difference between your favorite baseball team and your favorite football team is like the difference between immediate family and your weekend friends. He's right. I live with the Cubs every day, and I have for nearly half of my life. I see the Bears once a week for each season. The Cubs are my family, while the Bears are my friend.

With this in mind, fellow Cubs die-hards, let's not give up on our family just yet. I'm here to breathe some optimism back into Cubs nation.

I'm not saying I necessarily believe it's going to happen this way, and I'm certainly not predicting it ... I'm just saying these are some reasons why we shouldn't quit on the team just yet.

Stop that, Cubs fans. You know what I mean -- the repeated mumblings of "That's why they call it a series" followed by the "Something-something ... don't mind if I do!" Homer Simpson-like behavior. Seriously, stop. It's totally okay to freak out.

After all, you are down 1-0 in the National League Division Series to the Dodgers, and as TBS was kind enough to squeeze in between "I Love This Town" soundbites, the team that wins the first game of such a series has gone on to win said series 24 of 28 times.

Of course, it didn't have to be this way. There were a lot of things going in your favor. On paper (in theory) you had the better team. You also had a hefty wind (17 mph at last check) blowing into Wrigley. And Joe Torre made the mistake of using ground ball pitcher Derek Lowe tonight instead of saving him for a change in weather.

Every four years, Major League Baseball's postseason intersects with a presidential election. This is one of those years. In the spirit of the season, we here at MLB FanHouse have divided the playoff teams up for a series of debates. Matt Snyder and Will Brinson discuss the NLDS between the Cubs and Dodgers.

We'll run through different aspects of each team -- starting rotation, bullpen, defense, starting lineup, bench, manager, and end with a prediction. We'll do it with numbers and snarky commentary (most of which was used by Brinson), and we'll get right to it after the jump.

The mantra of every single non-Cubs fan in the world is the same heading into this postseason, and it couldn't be more misguided.

If you really don't think the Cubs are going to the win the World Series, that's fine. It's neither offensive nor outlandish, as long as your reasons are rational. If your reason is something along the lines of "because they are the Cubs" or has anything to do with any circumstance outside Lou Pinella and his 25 troops, however, you have no idea what you're talking about. Wake up.

Let me lay it out for you. Jerseys and logos don't cause winners and losers. Players and managers do. The Cubs franchise hasn't won the World Series since 1908. That's as much a coincidence as anything else. There's been bad management, what some would call bad luck, and plenty of bad players ... none of which have been inflicting the team during this 2008 season.

If you think teams need postseason experience to excel -- you better not look at last year's Rockies -- then the Cubs have plenty of it. The team was in the playoffs last year. They got swept, but as Ryan Theriot said, "sometimes you have to lose before you win." It's a learning curve.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Pressure on Brewers: With a pair of dramatic walk-off wins Thursday night, the Mets and Brewers earned a little less than 24 hours of breathing room -- a momentary respite from the words choker and collapse. They enter the final weekend of the regular season tied for the wild-card lead, and, in another bit of symmetry, both teams must wait until Sunday for their aces -- Johan Santana and CC Sabathia -- to start.

The pressure is always on in the Big Apple, but make no mistake, Milwaukee is facing a tougher road to the postseason. The Brewers must deal with the best team in the National League, the Cubs, as they claw and scratch for a playoff spot.

Lou Piniella rested Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano and Geovany Soto in Chicago's final game against the Mets Thursday, but it's unlikely he will sit them all weekend against Milwaukee, especially with a chance to knock out a Brewers team that presents a real threat in October. And Piniella will also send his best two starters of late -- Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly -- to the mound in the first two games of the series. The Brewers will start the shaky Jeff Suppan and Ben Sheets coming off injury before turning to Sabathia in the finale.

Of course, the Mets won't have it easy this weekend. The Marlins are a dangerous team and New York is using a spot starter on Saturday. The Phillies will have to take care of business against the Nationals too. But as good as the vibes have been for the Brewers this week against the Pirates, the Cubs present a major obstacle to Milwaukee's playoff hopes.

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

For the first time since the Clinton Administration, Yankee Stadium will be dark this October. The only thing more popular in America than the Yankees, is hating the Yankees, so it seems unlikely that your average non-New York baseball fan will be shedding a tear over the absence of the Bronx Bombers.

The network executives at FOX and TBS, on the other hand, can't be too pleased. People either love or hate the Yankees. Either way, they tune in to watch them in October.

The biggest draw in baseball won't be on the game's biggest stage next month, and the television types have every reason to wring their hands about the enormous void left in their wake. But hope is far from lost.

The 2008 postseason should offer plenty of storylines to keep viewers captivated -- and bean-counting executives happy -- even without the Yankees to kick around (or dote upon or whatever it is your average baseball fan likes to do with them).

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- In the Blink of an Eye: Things change at breakneck pace in the middle of a pennant race. The Brewers were headed for the most devastating loss yet Wednesday afternoon, struggling to generate runs for ace CC Sabathia and nearly squandering a bases-loaded, no-out opportunity before Mike Cameron's two-out, RBI single.

On back-to-back days, the Diamondbacks squandered the momentum from a rally in the top of the ninth inning in the very next half inning, turning what might have been two turnaround wins into back-breaking losses -- their wounds salted by a pair of Dodgers wins.

The Red Sox learned just how fleeting momentum is in baseball Tuesday night when Jonathan Papelbon blew a save after Jason Bay's go-ahead home run.

There are plenty of lessons to be gleaned from this time of year, but perhaps none more significant than that: there is no such thing as momentum in baseball. It's like no other game in that way. All it takes is one hanging pitch left up in the strike zone, one crack of the bat, for a season to be saved or lost. It's September, folks. Try not to blink.

It's the worst time of the year to be a Cubs fan right now, for the calendar has finally turned over to September, and that means it's time for the Cubs to collapse. So here we are on September 4th, and the Cubs have lost their last five games, but luckily for them the Brewers haven't gained any ground on them in the process.

That's the end of the good news, though, as millions of Cubs fans woke up this morning to read their copy of the Chicago Tribune and were hit with this headline: Zambrano's season is in jeopardy.

The silence surrounding the pain that is said to be in Carlos Zambrano's valuable right shoulder could speak volumes and the Cubs seemed to be preparing for the worst Wednesday, that Zambrano could be out for a long period, perhaps the rest of the season.

Manager Lou Piniella, who served as team spokesman, said he knew little of Zambrano's examination by team orthopedist Stephen Gryzlo, why Zambrano skipped his MRI appointment or how long Zambrano would be out, although Sean Marshall will start in his place Sunday.

Oh, but it gets worse. Zambrano isn't the only member of the Cubs rotation who is dealing with a mysterious injury right now, as Rich Harden has had his next start pushed back to next Wednesday thanks to some discomfort in his throwing arm.

Obviously, this is horrible news for a Cubs team that seemingly had everything going for it all season. While I don't think any of this will keep the Cubs from making the playoffs (their lead is still rather comfortable), it sure as hell isn't going to help them end their World Series drought.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Wild, Wild West: The contenders in the NL West might not have gaudy records -- only the Diamondbacks sit above .500 entering play Thursday -- but that doesn't mean the race won't be plenty entertaining. Think about the last couple of days.

Tuesday Dodgers phenom Clayton Kershaw and prized acquisition Manny Ramirez powered Los Angeles to within 1 1/2 games of first-place Diamondbacks. Wednesday Arizona's own trade catch Adam Dunn gave the D'backs a walk-off win and some breathing room ahead of their final series with the rival Dodgers.

All the while, the Rockies, the darlings of last year's postseason, are lurking. Colorado is 17-14 since the beginning of August, and lest you think it isn't a real factor well back of Los Angeles and Arizona, the Rockies will play both clubs a combined nine times in the coming weeks.

The beauty of a protracted pennant race, especially one with three teams battling for a lone playoff spot, is that it's bound to be exciting even if the teams aren't great, or even very good.