Don’t blame Sammy!
“He’s entitled to take an 0-for-5,” Mark Grace said in Tuesday’s twilight after the Cubs lost another one-run thriller, 5-4 to the Cleveland Indians for the 10th defeat in their last l4 games.
“Sammy was due to cool off,” Grace observed. “The guy has been carrying us for a month. We can’t just play poorly and the rest of us say, `That’s OK, Sammy will pick us up.’ “
Sosa, who now has the major league record for June home runs with 17, has been hitless in his last two games. He failed to bat safely in five trips Tuesday, made the final out on a weak foul popup and twice made the third out in clutch situations–with runners at first and third in the fifth and again with the bases loaded one inning later.
“Sammy isn’t Superman, he’s just been playing like it,” observed manager Jim Riggleman. “The other guys are going to have to pick us up.”
Slugger Henry Rodriguez, previously dormant, had his second successive big game Tuesday. He is 4 for 6 in the last two games, with one home run in each game.
“That’s a good sign,” said Riggleman, searching for the silver lining.
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With the pressure on as never before, Sosa appears to be overswinging. None of his teammates wants to say so but Riggleman admitted as much when he revealed that batting coach Jeff Pentland has been working with him, trying to get him to cut down on his swing.
Hall of Famer Billy Williams insisted there’s more to it, that the pitchers aren’t stupid and have wised up and aren’t giving him good pitches to hit.
“Every now and then they gave him something good,” Williams said, referring to Tuesday’s game, “but when he gets something good enough to swing at it’s a surprise pitch.”
Williams and Riggleman also acknowledged that the Indians, the defending American League champions, have one of baseball’s strongest teams.
“You have to be clicking on all cylinders to beat them,” Williams said. “We’re just going through a cold spot.”
Hot or cold, the Cubs have been packing them in. They drew a near-capacity 39,006 at Wrigley Field and in their last five home games have averaged 39,270.
“Great fans, great atmosphere,” Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove said before the game.
Then Hargrove asked, “Is it always like this here?”
Well, he was told, not always. The Cubs once spent 20 consecutive years in the second division but it was this way in ’84 and ’89, when they won divisional titles, and also in ’69 when they flopped at the finish after establishing a nine-game lead in mid-August.
For most of the members in the Cubs party, 1969 is virtually a myth.
“Some of these guys weren’t even born,” said Williams, who never will forget the ill-fated ’69 season. “It’s just as well they don’t know about it. It’s a horror story. A nightmare. It would keep them awake at night.”
Grace, a club elder, insists the current Cubs are good enough to win a divisional title.
“We have a lot of veterans on this club,” Grace said. “We might not be the best team but we can win if all of us play well. We can’t keep relying on one or two players.”
Grace, who is hitting .338, admits some reporters have mentioned to him he might have a good chance to win his first NL batting championship.
“No chance of that,” Grace said. “As long as No. 19 (Tony Gwynn) is with San Diego the rest of us are fighting for second.”
It also has been suggested manager Riggleman should appoint Grace the team captain.
Grace seemed to reject the idea.
“In baseball you don’t need a captain,” Grace said. “We don’t need someone walking around with a C on his cap.”
More than likely, the late Richie Ashburn, in the early 1960s, was the last Cubs captain. Grace was advised that once Ashburn agreed to the assignment, he was paid an extra $500 a month.
Grace, who pulls down an annual $4 million salary, brightened.
“I’ll do it for nothing,” he said.