Cubs’ Rizzo smooth as velvet with glove

Cubs manager Dale Sveum had a succinct answer when it was suggested Anthony Rizzo looks “smooth” at first base.

“Ya think?” Sveum said Saturday. “Left-handed first basemen can certainly look smooth, but you still have to be good. Just smooth isn’t good enough, but he’s obviously ,,, I keep telling him to stop panicking when you get those groundballs.”

Sveum was only kidding about that “panicking” part. Rizzo, who came up from Class AAA Iowa in late June, was a part of 3 double plays the Cubs turned Saturday in a 4-1 victory over the Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field. He started a 3-6-3 double play and a game-ending 3-6-1 double play and looked smooth as velvet doing it, without any rush to his throw to shortstop Starlin Castro, who was able to take the throws and fire them back to first base.

“Usually good defensive players are, they have a way of never worrying about ... I call it ‘no panic,’” Sveum said. “They just have no panic in them. They just find a way to get their hops, and the throws and stuff like that, they just don’t have any panic in them.”