Happy day for Fonzie, Cubs
Who says they don’t play Friday night games at Wrigley Field?
A 3-hour-and-40-minute rain delay pushed back the start of the season’s unofficial second half to happy hour — and Paul Maholm and Alfonso Soriano made it happy indeed for the Cubs.
Maholm took over the team lead in victories with his seventh, and Soriano hit a pair of homers, 2 doubles and had 5 RBI as the Cubs crushed the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-1.
It was the Cubs’ 10th victory in their last 14 games.
That time span just about coincides with Anthony Rizzo’s call-up from the minor leagues, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
“I don’t know,” said Soriano, who has 17 homers. “I think that with Rizzo coming, we have a lot more balance in the lineup. The rotation is pitching better, and the bullpen. The defense is getting better, too. I think we’re playing a lot better now, and I hope that we can turn around the second half. I know that in the first half we didn’t have a good record, but I hope in the second half, we start playing better and have a better record.”
Soriano’s 5 RBI tied his career high. Maholm improved to 7-6 and lowered his ERA from 4.57 to 4.33 with 7 innings of 6-hit, 1-run ball. It was his third straight win, and he has an 0.81 ERA in 4 starts since June 29.
“I think in all of my wins, I’ve either given up 1 or zero,” he said. “I guess that’s the mix to go after it. You just go out there and expect to go deep in the game and go as long and as hard as you can until they tell you you’re done. Today, I made some big pitches, got the groundballs and easier popups. The defense made some good plays.
“For me, it’s getting ahead, keeping the ball down and mixing speeds and not really trying to do a whole lot.”
Soriano homered leading off the fourth inning to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead. The ball easily cleared the left-field bleachers and landed on Waveland Avenue. In the fifth, he hit a high drive to deep left-center that landed in the bleachers.
After going without a homer in his first 30 games, Soriano has hit 17 in his last 50.
“I told him he’s getting four more days off,” joked manager Dale Sveum in talking about the just-concluded all-star break, during which Soriano got to rest his aching legs. “That was impressive to come back and tie his career high in RBIs. That was huge coming out of the break for him to get hot. It would be huge for him to keep this thing rolling with him going.”
Sveum mentioned before the game that the starting pitching has keyed the Cubs’ recent surge. What’s he looking for in the second half?
“Consistency,” he said. “Finally, the last two weeks we were able to put together a lineup, put together a back end of the bullpen and be able to mix and match with (Manny) Corpas and (Shawn) Camp and (James) Russell. (Carlos) Marmol’s been doing the job in the closer role. Those are the things you just try to establish. You end up being in a lot of games, and you end up winning a lot more games that way, too.
“Everybody right now is playing pretty good baseball. But like I said before, it starts with that starting pitching, and our starting pitching has been really good for a couple of weeks.”
bmiles@dailyherald.com