Dusty Says

The Cubs were swept by the New York Mets.

The Cubs were shutout (mostly) Jae Seo.

The Cubs are trying to sign Marquis Grissom.

The Cubs like to stay mathematically in the Wild-Card race.

The Cubs DFAd Mike Remlinger.

Sidenote: For those of you that like to see site statistics, this week’s line is shown here.

Amazing, if not accurate, article.

By THE JOURNAL NEWS
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: July 31, 2005)

In Focus/John Delcos

The answer is: because they are human, with the question being: What is it with some people?

We saw opposite ends of the spectrum this week with Manny Ramirez and Kerry Wood, one the epitome of selfishness and the other an example of sacrifice and putting the team first.

For Ramirez, it was making his third trade demand in four years; for Wood, it was volunteering to pitch out of the bullpen even with him possibly needing surgery for an injured shoulder.

The Red Sox are exasperated with Ramirez, who has 28 home runs and a world of talent but lives in his own universe.

Manager Terry Francona told Ramirez he would have last Wednesday afternoon off at Tampa Bay, but the manager came back to ask him to play after Trot Nixon strained a side muscle and went on the disabled list.

Being the team player that he is, Ramirez refused, then made his demand to be traded, which came as no surprise to club president Larry Lucchino, who said he didn’t know if all this was the result of some “psychological and physical needs for a sustained period of rest or if it’s some calculation or some move to encourage us to trade him.”

The fact is, the Red Sox would love to accommodate him and get out from under the weight of the remaining $64.2 million on his $160 million contract. After the 2003 season they actually tried to unload him through waivers.

That gave the Yankees, and everybody else, a chance to claim him off waivers by simply assuming his contract without having to give up players.

Every team passed on Ramirez then, so it’s unlikely they’ll offer players now for an expensive headache.

Lucchino knows Ramirez is basically untradeable.

“Because of the size of his contract, obviously, it’s hard,” Lucchino said. “There aren’t a lot of clubs that are going to be interested, but it depends how little you’re willing to take in return with respect to trades.”

While Ramirez remains a burden to the Red Sox, Wood is willing to do anything he can to help the Cubs, and it could be at the expense of his career.

Wood has been told he may need surgery to repair a frayed labrum in his shoulder, and the prudent thing would be to shut him down for the season.

Wood’s shoulder can’t handle 100 pitches anymore, but like Curt Schilling, he is willing to test it for 20 to 30.

“I don’t care if I can come out and get one guy out and it helps us win, I’ll do that,” Wood said. “I’d like to offer more than one inning, but this is what I’ve been dealt, and if I can get healthy and get throwing again, shortly, I’ll get out and try to contribute somehow.”

Whereas the Red Sox used Schilling in a closer role because of their hole in that area with Keith Foulke on the disabled list, the Cubs have a reliable closer in Ryan Dempster, so Wood could be temporarily slotted in a setup role.

The Yankees have a similar situation with Jaret Wright and haven’t ruled out using him in the bullpen when he returns from the DL.

Manager Joe Torre said Wright’s return could be accelerated if he initially comes back to pitch out of the bullpen, but indicated the club’s precarious situation with its starting pitchers might preclude that option.

However, should Carl Pavano come back strong, Aaron Small continue to pitch well, and either Al Leiter, Shawn Chacon or Hideo Nomo pan out, it could enable Wright to bolster the Yankees’ holes in long relief.

During spring training Wright said he’d do whatever the Yankees asked, and there’s no indication he’s moved away from that stance. He, like Wood, is willing to put his team first. Ramirez, meanwhile, is on his own planet.

Since joining the Cleveland Indians, Jason Dubois has been hitting .288 (seven hits) including two homeruns and two RBI; plus, he’s had the most impressive games of his season in the past two days; in the first one, he went 1/2 while walking twice (!? Making that the first multi-walk game of his career); in the latter one, he went 3-5 with a homerun and an RBI, while striking out just once.

He raised his OBP back to the .300’s and is becoming the light hitting, powerful DH the Indians wanted. Good riddance, Jason, as this will be the last Dubois Report.

Erase yesterday’s disappointing loss. Tonight’s game, a 2-1 loss to the Cardinals is the most disappointing loss of the season. Why? I’ll explain later. But the main fact being a move that the Cardinals made, and the Cubs didn’t.

After a decent performance by Chris Carpenter, and the best outing of the season of Carlos Zambrano, who went nine innings on three hits, one earned run (a Rodriguez homerun in the first inning), no walks and twelve, yes, twelve strikeouts, manager Dusty Baker decided to bring in Glendon Rusch. Okay, he did fine. After a leadoff single by Jim Edmonds, Larry Walker hit a wild grounder up the middle that Todd Walker (another Friday culprit — I’ll get to that later) picked up and threw to second to force Edmonds out, and Neifi! threw an off balance ball to Derrek Lee but the second out couldn’t be completed, thus leaving Walker on base. After that, Rusch got Grudzielanek and Abraham O. Nunez to end the inning.

In the previous half, the top of the tenth, Jerry Hairston, Jr had hit a triple that had everyone screaming. We all thought the Cubs would drive him in, something in which they handn’t been so successful in this game; there was one out (pinch hitter Jody Gerut had struck out — he was taking Zambrano’s space in the lineup, he had been 2-3 with a double and was left stranded on base after Todd Walker grounded into the second of his two double plays) and Todd Walker came to bat. He was responsible for not driving any men to score in the game; though, he grounded out again, and in a way that Jerry couldn’t score. Two outs. Derrek Lee up. What do you do? Do you intentionally walk Lee and face the left handed Jeromy Beernitz? This is where the move the Cardinals made took effect; they IBB’d Lee. Beernitz to bat, now. He had a Hell of a turn, and patiently (what? The Cubs do that?) walked. Jason Isringhausen was pitching. Up to bat came, with two outs, Aramis Ramirez. He has been hot as of late, as the last game preview said. But not now; he grounded out weakly to end the inning.

Flashback to the bottom of the eleventh — Sergio Mitre pitching. Relieving Glendon Rusch, who, as I said, had a messed up but harmless inning. John Mabry, after a couple of sinkers (what else does Mitre throw? Somebody tell me) hit a leadoff triple. He was pinch hitting for Al Reyes. Then came to bat So Taguchi, and he hit a wild grounder right to Neifi!, who held the runner and threw to first to complete the out. After him, David Eckstein, a fit for Tony Larussa, was up to bat. We all thought “squeeze” coming up. Apparently, Dusty didn’t.

Be Tony Larussa for a second. What do you do? You have speed on the basepaths. You have the best bunting leadoff hitter in the NL in the batters’ box. “Why, squeeze the run home, of course!”; but then, think for a second. The sellout crowd knows you’re going to squeeze the run home. Do you go and surprise everybody by calling the sacrifice ball in the air? You know Eckstein is not a power hitter by all means, and that has a rough time hitting balls in the air. No. Back to the squeeze. You call it. We all agree on that, right?

Be Dusty Baker for a second. There is an out. You hate squeezeplays. You despise them, you are an old fashioned manager who loves the old ways to win. But you know your counterpart loves them! The other manager has his best bunting batter in the batters’ box; you know he’s going to try and drive him home the bunting way. You take a look around. You see the mound, alright? Who’s there? Your best grounball pitcher. And first base is open, of course. What do you do? “Why, of course, IBB Eckstein and look for the double play, as Rodriguez is coming to bat!; except that Albert Pujols comes to bat after Rodriguez, and if he wasn’t to ground into a doubleplay, most definitely no one was. No worries, I could have Redster warm up again and he could face Pujols.”

But no. Eckstein didn’t walk. He hit a squeezeplay that ended the game. Game over, the Cardinals win 2-1.

That, and that only play, ruined the magistral outing by Zambrano, who seemed to be playing with more emotion than usual. Even after the trainers went to see him after a groundball seemed to hurt him, he was sharp. He struck out twelve batters, tying his career high. He spotted everything. He struck out Pujols twice. He delivered the best game of the year. Carpenter wasn’t too bad, either. He gave up a run on a Lee groundball that drove Hairston, Jr in; he walked two and struck out three. All that allowing just eight hits.

The other key circumstance that turned this game around was that the Cubs left fifteen men on base; Todd Walker was the star of that grounding out into a doubleplay twice. A team, especially this one, that doesn’t seem to walk a lot and when it finally takes a couple of pitches and walks doesn’t score a run, isn’t exactly built to make a run at the playoffs. Serious moves need to be made; just take a look at the scoring sheets: one player, Walker, was two shy of leaving on base the total number the Cardinals left.

After all that, still, I keep the hope. I keep the hope of making the playoffs. Please excuse me today, and look for me in the morning. I’ll have a shiny new face expression and I’ll talk about tomorrow’s matchup.