The Cubs are going to be all right. I’ve been saying that for a month, even as bits of sky fell on me during the recent outbreak of doomsaying in Chicago.
Now manager Lou Piniella is saying it, and, OK, his timing happens to be awful. The Dodgers beat the Cubs 8-2 on Sunday night.
More Top Picks Best Driving Sunglasses For Seniors
But his words should soothe a sometimes panicked fan base that can’t help but notice Derrek Lee is batting below .250 and it’s now June!
“I feel encouraged,” Piniella said Sunday afternoon. “I really do.”
But, Lou, baby, sweetheart, you’re in fourth place in the National League Central. People are concerned. It wasn’t so long ago that you were on a miserable eight-game losing streak.
And now you’re overflowing with confidence? Isn’t that like contemplating dance lessons during a shark attack?
“We’ve got probably four or five players here in the lineup that you’ll see [their] batting average go up 30, 40 points,” Piniella said. “That will dictate to me that we’ll score more runs more consistently.
“I like the way our bullpen is starting to come around. You win a lot in this league with a bullpen. I like the young arms that we have out there. I’m very familiar with all of them except for [Jason] Waddell, so we really know how to use them.
“Our rotation is going to give us an opportunity to win baseball games almost on a daily basis. So to me things are looking up. Now, does that mean we’re going to jump into first place tomorrow or the next day? Probably not. But our job basically is just to continue to play and win some baseball games — keep the teams that are in front of us within reach, and once you see us get healthy, I think you’ll see a good run out of this team.”
All this was said well before the Dodgers opened Sunday night’s game at Wrigley Field with five straight singles.
Piniella is right. Call it his State of the Union address or another rambler by Uncle Lou. But he’s right. His team is going to be all right.
For the standard long-suffering Cubs fan, it might be more fun to bob in a bubbling caldron of worry, but the truth is that despite the losing streak, the team is only 4 1/2 games out of first place in what thus far has been a very competitive division.
There has been some luck involved, both good and bad, and Piniella knows it. He has been without Aramis Ramirez, one of his better players, for an extended period. Lee, Milton Bradley and Geovany Soto have not hit the way most people expected them to, which is to say they’ve been brutal at times.
Lee and Bradley have battled injuries. Carlos Zambrano has been on the disabled list. Rich Harden is there now.
And the Cubs are still in decent position.
“I think we’re fortunate, I really do,” Piniella said. “It has to do with the competitiveness in this division. If you look at home-team records throughout the National League, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to go into your opponent’s park and win.
“It [says] something about our team. We’ve lost basically most of our big people. We’ve been able to hold on. It hasn’t been easy all year, I’ll be honest with you. We’ve had one bad stretch of baseball, and that was the St. Louis-San Diego trip where we lost six in a row. Outside of that, this team has played well. And in that stretch, we didn’t play poorly. We just didn’t hit. We scored five runs in six games.”
Piniella said all that well before Mark Loretta’s double gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead in the first.
Tuesday will be the Cubs’ 50th game. At 25-24, they’re not where they wanted to be, but it’s better than where they probably should be, considering the injuries and uneven play.
“We’ve still got four whole months in front of us,” Soto said.
Cubs starter Sean Marshall did induce Dodgers pitcher Eric Milton into flying out to the warning track to end the first, with Los Angeles clinging to a 5-0 lead.
It’s possible Piniella was trying to give his club a pep talk through the media Sunday. Follow the leader, and all that. Don’t get down. You’re the two-time defending division champion for a reason. The margarita glass is half-full.
Is all of it just happy talk? No. When they’re healthy, the Cubs still have the best talent in the division. That’s a big qualifier, but it’s true. They just split with the best team in baseball.
Before the game, Piniella said his team was through the worst of it. Not long after, he found himself pulling Marshall with the Cubs losing 7-0 in the fifth.
More Top Picks Best Hangers For Pants And Jeans
Forget it. They’re going to be all right. Promise.
———-
Sean Marshall allows five runs in first, and Cubs never recover. PAGE 3