Young Cubs make most of auditions in win over Cards
The understudies stole the show as the Iowa, er, Chicago Cubs upstaged St. Louis 5-1 in the regular-season home finale at Wrigley Field on Sunday.
Every Cubs regular sat out a day after the team clinched the NL Central Division as manager Lou Piniella and pitching coach Larry Rothschild held the first of eight open auditions for the final spots on the postseason roster.
Along with general manager Jim Hendry, the brain trust in blue will spend the upcoming week tinkering, honing and generally maneuvering lineups with three goals in mind: 1. Settle on a final playoff roster; 2. Get the regulars rested and healthy; 3. Field a competitive team against the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers, who remain in pitched battles for playoff spots with Philadelphia and Houston.
"We're going to have to play representative lineups because it's not fair to these other clubs," Piniella said. "We've got to play our lineup. I can rest a guy here and I can rest a guy there, but it can't be wholesale. I know that if we were in that position, that we wouldn't like it. We're going to go (to New York) and try to win some baseball games and make it as competitive as we can for everybody."
As for the auditions, just how many roles remain to be cast this week?
"We've got a couple of spots, I think, to play with," Piniella said. "I haven't talked to Jim (Hendry) about it, but he'll be on this road trip and we'll have ample time. But we have a couple of spots to decide on, whether it be pitching or player position-wise."
One player guaranteed a starring role in the playoffs is Ryan Dempster, who earned his team-best 17th win by holding the Cardinals to 1 run in an abbreviated 67-pitch, 5-inning performance.
After Dempster stepped out of the spotlight, the pitching cattle call began. Jeff Samardzija, Chad Gaudin, Randy Wells and Bob Howry each tossed 1 scoreless inning of relief.
"When you get your chance to go out there and pitch, you go out there and pitch," said Samardzija, who notched 2 strikeouts in the sixth. "You're always auditioning, no matter if you're here 10 years or 10 days."
Given a chance to step into featured roles for a day, Iowa regulars Casey McGehee, Felix Pie and Micah Hoffpauir made the most of their opportunities.
Pie went 2-for-4 with a triple and scored twice, Hoffpauir doubled and drove in a run and McGehee notched his first 2 hits as a major-leaguer in a 2-for-3, 2 RBI performance.
The Cubs took a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning when Pie led off with a triple and scored on a disputed play at the plate after McGehee's sacrifice fly.
McGehee singled home Mike Fontenot in the fifth, and Jim Edmonds drove in another run with a sacrifice fly in a pinch-hitting cameo appearance to make it 4-1. Ronny Cedeno doubled in the seventh and scored on a wild pitch for the final margin.
"I'm sure (the fans) didn't buy their tickets thinking they'd come to watch us play, " McGehee said of Sunday's lineup of B-list stars, "but we had a good game."
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>Game Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=236573">How the NL Central was won </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=236641">Gaudin back on the mound </a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>