Cubs push right buttons; panic button for Sox?
Call it a tale of one city.
Sunday, the Cubs were in Wrigley Field toying with the Pirates. Meanwhile, the scoreboard showed the Royals battering the White Sox.
Everything went wrong for the Sox: Kansas City won 14-3; in Minnesota, Francisco Liriano made a brilliant comeback for the Twins and the combination dropped the Sox out of first place for the first time since Hillary Clinton was a presidential candidate.
The Cubs, however, are making this game of baseball look easy. Manager Lou Piniella tried anything he wanted to and still beat the Pirates.
Piniella limited pitching ace Carlos Zambrano to 5 innings to save him some pitches in the heat of the summer. Then, he stretched reliever Jeff Samardzija to 2 innings to prepare him for the heat of autumn baseball.
Maybe the moves contributed or maybe not, but the Cubs' 5-2 lead evaporated into a 5-5 tie when the Pirates scored 3 runs against the rest of the bullpen.
No problem.
Reed Johnson hit a 2-run, pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Alfonso Soriano followed with a solo homer. The Cubs won 8-5.
Here's a simple analysis: The Cubs have won seven of their last eight games because they have more weapons than the teams they played.
"We have a lot of guys who come off the bench that could start for a lot other teams," Johnson said.
What a luxury for Piniella. Any button he pushes is the right one. Sox manager Ozzie Guillen should be so lucky, especially when it comes to his pitchers.
"You gotta have people who can do the job coming off the bench," Piniella said.
It's easy to note that the Cubs won their weekend series because lowly Pittsburgh was the opponent. But they also swept four games from Milwaukee, which was tied for the division lead little more than a week ago.
The Cubs look right now like they can keep winning even if Piniella wants to play Zambrano at first base to get him some more at-bats, or Samardzija in center field to see whether he can run down flies the way he ran down passes from Brady Quinn at Notre Dame.
Seriously, the Cubs are at the top of their game and the National League. They're 22 games above .500 for the first time this season. The arrow is pointing even higher even if situations are fluid this time of the season.
Things are going so well for Piniella that Zambrano - who normally would pitch into the wee hours of the morning if allowed to - didn't mind being pulled sooner than later.
"The most important thing is we won the game and are still in first place," said Zambrano, who lost a pitching victory when the Cubs lost the lead.
Yes, folks, on the South Side the Sox are in danger of unraveling, and on the North Side the Cubs are in the process of, er, raveling.
Both teams are home this week, and the Sox certainly could right themselves and the Cubs wrong themselves.
But right now, two different tales are being told in this one city.
mimrem@dailyherald.com