Carlos Zambrano was nowhere near U.S. Cellular Field Saturday night, but his presence loomed over the ballpark like Milton Bradley’s evil spirit.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella called a clear-the-air team meeting before Game 5 of the City Series, hoping the air around his gasping and wheezing club wasn’t irretrievably fouled by the Friday dugout tantrum that resulted in an indefinite suspension for Zambrano.
“It was constructive,” Piniella said. “We needed a meeting at this time.”
More than that they needed some help against the White Sox, who stretched their winning streak to 11 with a 3-2 victory, their fourth in five games against the Cubs this year. Paul Konerko’s 19th home run of the season broke a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning and the Sox turned a crisp third-to-second-to first double play to end it before 39,479 well entertained fans on a gorgeous summer evening.
“These are the most fun games you play in all year if you don’t make the playoffs,” Konerko said after turning around a 98-mph heater from Cubs rookie Andrew Cashner on a 1-2 pitch.
“Paulie’s a professional hitter,“ Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. “He’s very confident, very relaxed. That’s why he has good at-bats in pressure situations.”
Konerko had taken an awkward flail at Cashner’s 1-1 pitch, also a fastball.
“He made me look bad on the pitch before, so if I was pitching I’d have come back with the same thing,” he said. “When a guy is throwing 98, you don’t have much time to think about it.”
The Sox’s longest winning streak since a 12-gamer in 1961 enabled them to hoist the coveted BP Cup, a marketing ploy designed to recognize the winner of the City Series.
“We had Omar [Vizquel] accept it because he’s the oldest guy on the team who hasn’t won the cup,” Konerko said. The trophy, he added, might carry more significance “if the Hawks hadn’t won the Stanley Cup, and if it weren’t for the oil spill.”
Guillen said he hoped each member of the Sox “would get to spend a day with the cup.”
The Sox’s good cheer is understandable—they’ve barged into contention with 15 wins in their last 16 games. Their formula is tried-and-true baseball: solid pitching, exemplary fielding and timely hitting. Freddy Garcia gave them seven strong innings Saturday, then turned it over to J.J. Putz and Matt Thornton, who was called on to close it with Bobby Jenks away on a family matter.
“Freddy, Freddy, Freddy—amazing,” Guillen said. “I never thought we’d get this from him. But he likes to pitch in big games. He likes to show people how good he is.”
The Sox didn’t exactly pound the ball, mustering just four hits off Carlos Silva and Cashner. Outside of Konerko’s blast, the most timely hit was Alex Rio’s two-out single in the third, which scored Gordon Beckham after he led off the inning by scalding a triple to right-center field but stayed at third as Silva retired Juan Pierre and Vizquel.
The M.I.A. middle of the Cubs’ order produced both their runs, Derrek Lee delivering an RBI single in the sixth and Aramis Ramirez tying the game with a long home run to right-center off Garcia in the seventh.
“Good ballgame,” Piniella said. “Well-pitched game. We played with intensity and we played the game well. Silva gave us six good innings before he cramped up and Cashner threw the ball well. Tip your cap to Konerko. He’s a good hitter, and he hit a good fastball out of the park.”
Piniella has been a fire-breather for much of his baseball life, not unfamiliar with the concept of Zambrano-like tantrums. Some of his managerial eruptions have seemed calculated, designed to inject life into a moribund ballclub, and TV analyst Bob Brenly’s recent characterization of the Cubs as a “dead-ass team” may have been on Piniella’s mind when he hobbled out for a word with home-plate umpire Bill Hohn after Carlos Quentin was awarded first base on a questionable hit-by-pitch ruling in the second inning.
Lou’s protest was mild, certainly not vigorous enough to get him tossed, so he was around to witness the crackling good ballgame that followed.
“”We’re like six or seven games under .500 in one-run games,” Piniella said. “It’s no fun losing like that. It’s definitely something we have to improve on.”
The length of Zambrano’s suspension is still to be determined. No one from the Cubs had heard from him since Piniella sent him home on Friday, but Guillen had; the Venezuelan countrymen are friends and met for dinner Friday night as planned.
“I told Carlos he should apologize,” Guillen said. “Face it like a man. Don’t turn your back on this problem. He didn’t kill anyone, he just made one mistake. When you face it like a man and admit you were wrong, people move on.”
The Cubs wish Zambrano had spent a more introspective evening at home rather than “be out yukking it up at dinner,” as assistant general manager Randy Bush put it. But at this point they can’t be surprised by anything the oddly wired pitcher does.
Piniella said Zambrano will be used in the bullpen if and when he returns, with Tom Gorzelanny moving into the rotation. Zambrano’s behavior, coupled with a year’s worth of mediocre pitching, might be the biggest and most obvious problem confronting the Cubs, but it’s hardly the only one. They’re 10 games under .500 and fading fast.