The Cubs may yet contend for a playoff spot this year, though games like today’s — which I had the gross misfortune of attending — make it very difficult to see how that’s possible. But you never know how this team could turn around once Sosa and Wood come back.

Certainly, the mediocrity of the Central Division could make it easier for the Cubs to stay in the thick of things for quite some time. But the hopes some Cubs fans may have had that their team could not only repeat as division champs but win 100 games for the first time since 1935 have long since faded away.

Now we hope only that they’ll finish above .500 in consecutive years for the first time since 1971-72. After today — when even Prior stuck up the joint — it’s tough to stay positive.

On the other hand, I’m glad that though I’ve kept score of many of the hundreds of Cubs games I’ve attended over the years, I have not kept any ongoing log of wins and losses. The Cubs cannot have won more than 40 percent of those games. It certainly doesn’t feel like it. But I’m relieved to not know for sure the exact nature of their terribleness in my presence.

Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.