Cubs’ Wood gets cuffed around for third straight start
Yes, the Cubs are rebuilding and everything, but if and when they trade Ryan Dempster and Matt Garza, somebody’s going to have to pitch the rest of the season.
Manager Dale Sveum said he wasn’t looking that far ahead after Friday’s 9-6 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Maybe he doesn’t want to.
Left-hander Travis Wood will be one of the pitchers asked to step up if trades happen, and he got cuffed around for the third straight start. There doesn’t appear to be much help on the way from the farm, which is one reason Sveum is covering his eyes for as long as he can.
“Until those things happen, we have people that are in line for those (starts), but we’re not setting anything in stone, because nothing’s happened,” said Sveum, whose team fell to 40-58. “So you can’t dwell on stuff that hasn’t happened yet.”
Wood threw himself into some dubious territory in the record books by serving up 5 home runs to the Cardinals.
That tied a Cubs record, previously matched by Carlos Zambrano last Aug. 11 in Atlanta. Wood did himself one better by surrendering a home run in each of the first five innings, becoming the first starting pitcher in major-league history to do that, according to Elias. It also was the first time the Cubs as a team had allowed 5 homers in each of the first five innings of a game. Wood has a 12.64 ERA over his last 3 starts.
“Things didn’t go as planned,” said Wood, who fell to 4-6 with a 4.98 ERA. “I missed some pitches and they didn’t miss the pitches that I missed. They ended up hitting them out of the park.”
Wood had been on a roll earlier this season, with 4 straight victories. Now, he’s simply on a slide with his 3 straight losses.
The Cubs obtained Wood last Christmas from the Reds in a trade for dependable reliever Sean Marshall. They see the 25-year-old as one of their “building blocks to sustained success” as team president Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer are wont to call it.
If Dempster and/or Garza go, Wood steps up in a rotation that includes Jeff Samardzija and Paul Maholm and anybody the Cubs get back in a trade and anyone from a thin farm system.
“Whatever happens on that day is meant to happen,” Wood said of any trades. “You just got to work your next four days to get ready for that fifth day.”
The Cubs held a 3-1 lead after the first inning, when Anthony Rizzo hit a 2-run homer. But the Cardinals got their 5 homers off Wood from five different players: Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, Lance Berkman, Matt Carpenter and Allen Craig.
As far as trade scenarios go, Dempster’s name has been linked to several teams, but there doesn’t appear to be anything concrete in the works as the July 31 nonwaiver deadline comes up Tuesday.
The speculation doesn’t appear to have distracted the team as a whole, but Sveum said he could understand if it’s weighed on Dempster, who already has used his veteran status to block a trade to Atlanta.
“It’s something, I don’t care who you are, you’re not used to being out of the element of coming here, doing your work, doing your sides, being a teammate,” Sveum said. “You’ve always got the distractions. I’m not in those guys’ shoes.
“I think there’s no question it’s always going to weigh on you a little bit. Everybody’s human.”
Of course, if Dempster stays, it would relieve Sveum of the burden of thinking about plugging other pitchers into the rotation. Sveum was asked if Dempster staying would create any “issues.”
“It would be a nice issue if we had him the rest of the year,” Sveum said. “We’re only going to be a better team with him on the field this year. As far as issues, there’s not going to be any issues.
“Fortunately for Dempster, he’s got the 10-and-5 rights. For whatever reason, people just don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes and all the reasons why you accept (a trade) and why you don’t. It’s one of those unfortunate things that you jump to conclusions, but he’s one of the most class guys you’ll ever be around and teammates and obviously very productive when he goes out there every five days, too.”