Angry Cubs Beating Themselves

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The Cubs have had, to say the least, a strange season, one befitting a deeply strange team.


Plagued by injuries to their vaunted starting staff, the Cubs have still fielded the best rotation in the league. It’s the only part of the team that’s been anything near consistent. The bullpen and the offense have dominated occasionally, but never at the same time, and both have been prone to team breaking slumps. The defense has been terrible all year, weak not just in range but in the execution of fundamental plays – with some notable exceptions like center fielder Corey Patterson, who has to compensate for wretched corner outfielders Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou.


Consistency and fundamental play were not what anyone expected to be the Cubs’ problems this year. This is a team built by and for Dusty Baker; with the veterans, shabby reserves, and workhorse starters he prefers all up and down the roster, it was expected that whether they won or lost, the Cubs would give an effort of which they could be proud.


For whatever reason, though, the three-time Manager of the Year has not only failed to coax consistent play out of the reliable veterans with which he has insisted on surrounding himself, but he has encouraged them in their mindlessly self-destructive behavior.


He has, for instance, given paranoid interviews in which he’s defended the right of inept middle reliever Kent Mercker to call the broadcast booth to scream at announcers in the middle of the game. If Baker is trying to encourage an “us against the world” mentality, it’s failing badly; all he’s done is create a sense of pointless hostility that has resulted in the suspensions of several key players over run-ins with opposing players and umpires.


Worse, setup man Kyle Farnsworth was lost for the stretch run when he broke a toe kicking a fan after choking away yet another lead. Just as Kevin Brown’s wall-punching episode seemed to symbolize a collapsing Yankees team, Farnsworth’s action seemed the perfect expression of how the Cubs are melting under pressure.


All of this is in some ways unsurprising, given the enormous expectations with which the team came into the season and the unusual number of hotheaded players on the team. Alou, starters Carlos Zambrano and Kerry Wood, and closer LaTroy Hawkins, in particular, could probably all use a good anger-management course. Given that Baker’s supposed strength is in creating a cool, low-key environment in which his players feel as little pressure as possible, this is a suprising turn of events.


All the Cubs’ flaws, and their considerable strengths – if they make the postseason, I would consider them the favorite to win the World Series – were on vivid display this weekend in their key series against their wild card rivals, the Florida Marlins.


The first game, a 7-0 loss, was an atrocity from the Cubs’ point of view. Wood threw the ball about as well as he has all year, yet allowed six runs due to horrible defense, including two straight throwing errors by reserve Ramon Martinez, a Baker crony kept around for his steady hands. The offense, meanwhile, was shut out by Cy Young candidate Carl Pavano, partly due to some strange decisions by Baker, who kept his two hottest bats, Alou and Aramis Ramirez, on the bench.


The second game of Friday’s doubleheader was the Cubs at their finest. They won 11-2, rapping out 18 hits against rookie Logan Kensing behind an eight-inning gem from Mark Prior.


The two games, taken together, were entirely typical of the Cubs’ season. No one has told them, it sometimes seems, that they are allowed to win close games, that there are more options in the baseball life than shelling or being shelled.


Saturday’s game was something entirely unexpected. Most of the afternoon was spent as a taut pitcher’s duel between Zambrano and Dontrelle Willis; going into the bottom of the eighth inning down 2-1 with the devastating relief combination of Guillermo Mota and Armando Benitez coming up, it looked as if the Cubs had wasted yet another of Zambrano’s typical seven-inning, two-run performances. But with the big hit coming off the bat of former Marlin Derek Lee, the team was actually able to knock in four runs in the inning, and hold onto the lead as oft-combustible closer Hawkins struck out the side.


Yesterday’s 11-1 Marlins rout was something of a write-off. With spot starter Glendon Rusch in for the far better Matt Clement, the Cubs are fine having split the series, especially considering that Nomar Garciaparra was available for only two of the four game set. This is a team, though for which “fine” shouldn’t be good enough.


As they showed against a Marlins club that came into the weekend as hot as any team in the game, the Cubs can beat anyone. Unfortunately, until their manager gets them on track and focused on the fact that every out they give away could be the one that sends them home for October, the team they’ll be beating most often is themselves.


The New York Sun

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