Nothing silly about Lilly
"Big Z," Ryan Dempster and new arrival Rich Harden may get more publicity, but when Cubs manager Lou Piniella absolutely, positively has to have a big win or needs a losing streak busted, the one guy he turns to is Ted Lilly.
Last week against Milwaukee, Lilly went toe-to-toe with Brewers ace CC Sabathia and got the series off to a good start with a victory.
Saturday at Wrigley Field, Lilly's assignment was to lead the Cubs back from a lackluster loss the previous day to Pittsburgh, and that's just what the veteran lefty did, surviving a shaky start to shut down the Pirates through 6 innings to lead the Cubs to a 5-1 victory on a chamber of commerce afternoon on the North Side.
"He's a gutsy kid," Piniella said. "He doesn't back off. He gets after it and it shows.
"Even though early in the game he wavers a little bit, he just collects himself and digs in and does a heck of a job."
It was Lilly's fourth straight quality start and the 10th in his last dozen starts.
And, as he's done a few times this season, Lilly (11-6) had to survive some wildness early as he walked a pair and faced seven Pirates in the second inning. But he came away relatively unscathed with just 1 run crossing the plate.
"Fortunately, I was able to get out of it," Lilly said. "You can only get away with that so many times. I've done that quite a bit throughout the course of the year and found a way out of it."
Piniella didn't know if that would be the case.
"I told (pitching coach) Larry (Rothschild), 'Boy, we'll be fortunate if we get 6 innings out of him,'" Piniella said. "I'll tell you what, over the past two years, this guy does as good a job as anybody we have here at putting an end to a losing streak.
"He started out 1-5 and he's what, 10-1 since? Not too shabby."
Lilly is the first Cubs lefty with consecutive 10-win seasons since Steve Trout in 1983-84; his 41 victories since the start of the 2006 season rank fourth among major-league lefties, and he has won 10 or more games in each of his last six seasons.
"He's just a battler," said center fielder Reed Johnson, who led the Cubs' offense with 3 hits and a pair of runs scored. "All he cares about is winning the game, and that's what you want. Even when he doesn't have his best stuff, he's going to go after hitters.
"There's been a lot of times this year when he hasn't had his good stuff, but I think a lot of good pitchers, when they don't have their good stuff, they find a way to battle through 6 or 7 innings," Johnson said. "Another thing good pitchers do is stop potential losing streaks, and that's what Teddy did today."
Piniella's right-handed-heavy lineup helped as well, cooling off red-hot Pirates lefty Paul Malholm, who came into Saturday's game with 5 wins in his previous 6 starts and was 4-0 in his career vs. the Cubs.
"It's important to stop that kind of momentum," Lilly said, "and it's a lot easier when the guys go out there and put 5 runs on the board and pressure on their pitcher."