Rally a welcome sight to Quade and Co.
That familiar old here-we-go-again feeling had begun to settle over Wrigley Field Saturday afternoon.
Hold on a second. What's that, you say?
“Ah, the familiar thing,” interrupted Cubs manager Mike Quade when an intrepid suburban reporter ran that storyline by him. “I got no time for the familiar thing.”
Fortunately for Quade and the Cubs, he didn't have to talk about any of the bad stuff Cubs fans had gotten used to over the past couple years after his club rallied with 5 runs in eighth inning to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-3 at Wrigley Field.
Just a few minutes before Alfonso Soriano (who had gotten booed again) tied the game at 3-3 with an opposite field single and Blake DeWitt (who had lost his starting job) drove in the go-ahead 2 runs with a first-pitch, pinch-hit double, the umpteenth verse of the same song was being sung.
The Cubs were just 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position before Soriano's hit. Starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano left the game because of cramps in his hand. The Cubs were trying everything including bunts from their first baseman to get something started. And they were swinging early and often against Pirates lefty Paul Maholm.
Then it all changed in the eighth inning as the Cubs sent 10 men to the plate against relievers Evan Meek and Chris Resop.
Pinch hitter Kosuke Fukudome drew a leadoff walk. Soriano fought off the hard-hard throwing Meek before going to right-center. And Tyler Colvin showed some patience by walking in front of DeWitt.
Behold the power of getting on base. So where'd all that come from?
“Geez,” Quade said. “Just keep playing.”
The Cubs benefited from a big error in the eighth from Pirates first baseman Lyle Overbay after Fukudome's walk and Starlin Castro's RBI double, but the way things were going, the Cubs were glad to take the largesse.
Early on, though, you could feel the restlessness in the less-than-sold-out stands. Zambrano gave up a pair of early runs, then fell behind 3-0 when Garrett Jones led off the seventh with a homer. Quade sensed trouble when he saw a radar-gun reading of 81 mph.
“He's something,” said Quade, noting Zambrano got the Cubs' first extra-base hit of the season with a double in the third. “All he has to do is take care of that cramp and just keep doing what he's doing. He doesn't need to do any more. I just watched him fiddle around in the sixth inning more than he normally does. He said, ‘I'm OK.' But I can also look up at the board and see 81.”
Zambrano said he felt the cramping, even in his hamstring, heading out for the seventh.
“I'll be OK,” he said. “I'll drink a lot of fluids and do whatever I have to do to not feel that anymore.”
One guy feeling good about himself was DeWitt, who went from platoon player at second base to backup at third. Quade kept talking up DeWitt, and the kid responded by lining his big hit to the opposite field.
“Spring's over; it's time to compete,” DeWitt said. “Spring's important for everybody in this clubhouse. But when we get here, it's done. Nobody remembers what you do in the spring. No doubt about it, I wish I would have had a better spring. There's no turning back now.”