As it if werent enough that Mike Quade led the Cubs to their first sweep in 137 years, inserted guys with the best OBPs at the top of the lineup, and got Tylermania back in the game, now he's managed to beat the unbeatable Pirates and possibly cure Big z's nephew:.

"I hope the overall picture is taken into account, but I'm not doing the evaluation," he said. "Some of that I'm sure will be in the mix. Look, there are a lot of good baseball people out there and I get a chance to do this in front of people. We're going to try and win every ballgame obviously, and I'm sure wins and losses will be a part of it. To what extent, that's for the people evaluating me to answer."

Quade took a moment to look around the ballpark during the national anthem, thinking about how fortunate he is to have finally reached this position. It has been a long road to Wrigley, but the wait was worth it.

"It's not just about being here," he said. "But it's about where I've been, and I've been damn near everywhere, so this is a pretty good place to end up right now."

WASHINGTON -- Mike Quade isn't going to pretend he's not auditioning for the Cubs job in 2011.

"I guess," he said. "The thing to say is, 'Oh, no, no, no. But, no, it probably absolutely is. And for me, the thing you've got to be careful about is you've got to do what you've got to do. It's a generic statement, but it really is (true). I know what I've done in the past and how I've gone about it. And I've been around so many good people. You have to be yourself. You just have to approach it and do it my way and whatever happens happens.

"But in some way, shape or form, it absolutely is an audition."

The name of the game is economy today, people. As I I need to economize my energy, because I don't have any. Therefore, we're having a joint headlines/game thread post. If you don't like it, you can go sit with the morans today.

It's hard to get fired up about the prospect of sweeping a team to cut their lead to 8.0 games, but the Cubs should have thought of that before they decided to score 1 run the entire month of June.

But hey, I come bearing good news this morning! Big Z had a Big Night in Iowa yesterday!

Love him or hate him, he was endlessly entertaining. And he changed baseball.