The Cubs have won the first game in each of their last six series dating back to earlier this month, but are just 2-10 in all other games, forcing the team to decide it will only play the first game of each series in an effort to finally maintain some sort of momentum during this tailspin of a season.

“It seems like our guys only really show up for the opener, for whatever reason,” said Mike Quade who said he got the idea after Monday’s makeup game victory over Colorado. “So we’ll just keep playing only the first game of each series for the rest of the season.”

Quade said the team was busy constructing a list of legitimate excuses to postpone each game after a series opener in hopes the league will let them shuffle the entire schedule so that every game is a series opener for the three remaining months of the 2011 campaign.

“Coming up with a list that long is the tough part to this genius plan, but our guys are great at buckling down when the pressure’s on,” said Quade. “Unless of course it requires us to win a third straight game. In that case we’re awful.”

hecklerstaff