"Guess who's pitching tonight?"

Here in the NC -- aside from FOX's weekly national games -- we get baseball on three channels: ESPN, WGN, and TBS.

This means we watch a lot of Braves games and we hate on them (but it's baseball) and we watch a lot of Cubs games and I have rage blackouts at the Big Z on a regular basis (but it's baseball). But more than that, mostly we just watch a lot of Cubs games in general: they're on, Len & Bob are frequently drunk, and it's baseball when there's otherwise no baseball on the TV.

And more than even that, it means that Ted Lilly is stalking us. I've probably watched three or four dozen Cubs games this year, and at least half of those I've watched with shep., and at least half of those -- so we're talking a dozen games at least, here -- Ted Lilly has been pitching.

We've seen Jason Marquis throw a few times. We've mocked Sean Marshall's oddly squashed face a few times. We've seen the Big Z melt down more than I care to think about. And we've seen damn close to half of Ted Lilly's starts this season, and we can't figure out why.

Does WGN love Ted Lilly particularly? Is this a fluke of the broadcast schedule, a whim of WGN's carrying of Cubs games that we've just been subjected to?

No, it's clearly this: Ted Lilly wants shep. and me to love him. I mean, come on, people: he's on ESPN tonight, begging for our love. Ted Lilly wants us to stalk him, so he's stalking us instead.

Ted, I'm sorry. We're very busy with Matt Wieters and Andrew Carignan at the moment, and I know it's hard, but we don't love you the way you love us. If you don't get off our TV, we're going to get a restraining order.

Seriously, Ted. You're starting to creep us out.