Pretend April didn’t happen. That’s what the Cubs are doing. This is how it was supposed to be, Kerry Wood escorting the pitching rotation, followed by Ismael Valdes, and Kyle Farnsworth mercifully using his right arm for flipping burgers or washing his car, though most likely from the stretch position.
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The ideal summer is here at last, starting Tuesday evening. Wood will be back, and Valdes will follow on Thursday, never mind that the Cubs must carry their 10-17 record into May. Blinded by expectation and exhilaration, Cub fans won’t be able to read those numbers anyhow.
“It’s great to have someone every fifth day who can stop a losing streak,” said manager Don Baylor.
Valdes has been stiffed by tendinitis since early in spring training, whereas Wood has been the most celebrated invalid since the Venus de Milo, spending more than a year working his way back from elbow surgery.
“I’m thinking about Kerry’s health first, but I’m also thinking how great it is to be pitching next to him with his kind of stuff, the talent he has, to be in the same rotation,” Valdes said.
Everybody is understandably just a bit breathless about this, applying to Wood more than the usual hopes and expectations. It is not just the curiosity about whether Wood is what he was but there is an anxious yearning that somehow Wood will restore the Cubs to contention and respectability.
“Anyone who saw this kid in ’98 knows what Kerry Wood is capable of,” said catcher Joe Girardi.
Even Wood does not know what will happen. “I haven’t faced major-league batters,” he said.
Not only is the best wished for Wood but everything is assumed to be just as he left it. To imagine anything else would be to contaminate the comeback. No pessimism allowed.
“Anytime Kerry is on the mound, you know you’ve got a chance to play behind a no-hitter,” Mark Grace said. “He can lift the other pitchers’ frame of mind. They’re not going to have his stuff, but it can elevate you to a higher level when you can feed off someone in your own rotation.”
And, naturally, the hitters will hit better, the fielders will vacuum everything near them and all their children will be born with straight teeth.
The practical manger in Baylor says he’s just hoping for six or seven innings. And then he lets his enthusiasm overwhelm his caution.
“I played with [Roger] Clemens and [Nolan] Ryan,” Baylor said, “and they always gave the team a chance.”
Without even pitching, Wood has rejoined the company he was keeping when he stopped. It’s almost as if Wood can erase the Cubs’ lousy month and practically lethal self-humiliation if his arm simply doesn’t fall off.
“I’m not going to try to do too much, nothing I’m not capable of,” Wood said. “I’ve worked 121/2 months to get back here and I’m not going to come in and try to turn things around by any means. I am going to get back in the rotation and go out there and try to do my job.
“Everything will take care of itself. I’m not going to worry about whether the team’s playing bad or I’m trying to do too much. That’s when you get in trouble. I’ll do my job and if everybody does his job, we’ll win ballgames.”
Besides sharing in the same week what has to pass for hope with the Cubs, at least until Corey Patterson is hauled in from the minors, Wood and Valdes share blisters, a consequence of having to work themselves back into the major leagues.
“The minor-league baseball,” explained Valdes, “the seams are higher.”
What would you rather have, a little raw skin or the darning eggs that even guys named Bernard, as in Gilkey, are hitting over the fences these days?
Ah, no matter. The point is, the Cubs’ pitching has resembled Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, willing sacrifices but without the heat, and no more obvious than Sunday, when the Cubs found just enough bodies to let Arizona’s Big Unit (sounds like a National Guard detachment, heavy weapons), Randy Johnson, win his sixth game of the month and lower his ERA to under a run a game.
Wouldn’t the Cubs love to have someone like that?
“Maybe we do starting Tuesday night,” Baylor said.
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“I feel good, I feel great and I’m ready to go,” said Valdes, who could have been speaking for Wood as well. “I’m anxious, I’m happy. I can’t wait.”
Ditto.