Piniella apologizes, but Marquis still faces same scenario

MESA, Ariz. -- Just because Cubs manager Lou Piniella apologized Sunday to pitcher Jason Marquis doesn't change Marquis' situation.

He's still battling for a spot in the starting rotation, and general manager Jim Hendry still will trade him if the right deal comes along.

Sunday began with Marquis walking into manager Lou Piniella's office at 8:43 a.m. and re-emerging exactly 10 minutes later.

"Look, first of all, I'm going to apologize," Piniella told reporters later. "I didn't handle that situation well. I overreacted to it. … I can understand why a player feels that way. We'll leave it at that."

Piniella's mea culpa stemmed from a nasty reaction Saturday to Marquis saying he felt he was a starting pitcher and that if the Cubs didn't agree, he could take his services elsewhere.

Upon hearing the gist of those comments, Piniella exploded.

"Well, if that's the case, he can go somewhere else," Piniella said after the Cubs lost 6-2 to the Angels, a defeat Piniella admitted had him in a bad mood to begin with.

Piniella also said Marquis' stance "galls me."

"I'm human, and when I'm wrong, I admit I'm wrong," Piniella said. "I should have handled the situation differently. I recognized it after I said it, but what can you do? On the way home, I said, 'Well, I stuck my foot in my mouth.' But I already had stuck it, so what do you do?"

Marquis said he was fine with Piniella's apology.

"Everything was fine," Marquis said. "We just move on and go out there and compete and that's it.

"I'm committed to the Chicago Cubs first and foremost. I want to pitch here. That's the reason why I signed here. I want to go out there and get better day by day, like I've been saying, and work on things I need to work on, and we'll cross that path when we get there."

Hendry signed Marquis to a three-year, $21 million contract last winter. That contract still has $16.25 million left on it, and the Cubs may have to eat a healthy chunk of it if they want to trade Marquis. Hendry downplayed the tempest between pitcher and manager.

"I'm a little surprised it's a topic of discussion on March the first," Hendry said. "Everybody knows we've got seven or eight pitchers for five spots. To me, after the first start of 2 innings, I'm surprised it was addressed at the magnitude it was, to be honest with you."

Marquis was 12-9 with a 4.60 ERA last year, but the Cubs kept him out of the picture for the division series against Arizona, which the Diamondbacks swept in three games. Marquis pitched himself out of the equation with a 6.21 ERA in September. His ERA in June was 5.09, and in July it was 6.29.

The previous year, the St. Louis Cardinals kept Marquis off their playoff roster. He said Sunday he harbored no bitterness toward the Cubs.

"Not one bit," he said. "I've been through that before. I know when to drop it. That's part of the game. Obviously, people making decisions felt it was best for the team to help them win in the playoffs. That's the way life goes."

"I went back to the drawing board to see what I needed to do to get better because at the end of the season, I wasn't that great. Obviously, the numbers show that, but there are steps that I've taken and improving to my game that I've been working on to get better."

Specifically, Marquis cited only the need to work better when runners are on base.

All of his troubles led to him coming to camp fighting for one of the final two spots in the rotation with Ryan Dempster, Jon Lieber and Sean Marshall.

Privately, Cubs people find it hard to believe that Marquis would seem surprised that he has to fight for a job.

"We're going to continue to go with the way we've been doing it," Piniella said. "Everybody's going to get an opportunity here to start. We'll see what happens toward the end of spring training. Look, competition is part of this thing. We've got seven very capable people here to start. Is that my fault? No. That's what we have, and I've got to give everybody a chance."

Marquis added that as a starting pitcher he had "done it effectively over the last four-plus years, five years." He also said he's fine with competing, although he said he doesn't compete with other pitchers.

"The only people I compete with are myself and the hitter in the box," he said. "That doesn't mean I think I deserve the job over somebody or not."