In Cubs' managerial search, it looks like the leader's in the clubhouse

HOUSTON -- Mike Quade has to be feeling a little like the golfer who tees off first, shoots a 64 and says, "Come and catch me."

The season ended for Quade and his Cubs on Sunday with a 4-0 loss to the Houston Astros. Although the team finished with a disappointing record of 75-87 and in fifth place, they were 24-13 under Quade, who took over for Lou Piniella on Aug. 23.

Of course, Quade is at the whim of general manager Jim Hendry and the Ricketts family, but he expressed confidence in his chances Sunday.

"Good, good," he said. "I think I said yesterday maybe the most important thing for me was I feel good because in spite of believing you could do this and in spite of training to do this and everything else, guess what? Now I've got to do it. I've been comfortable doing it. It's exactly what I thought it would be."

Hendry praised Quade more than once Sunday but gave no clues as to whom he'd hire to manage beginning in 2011.

However, Hendry did say he's ready to begin the second phase of the managerial search. This weekend in Houston, Hendry interviewed former Mariners and Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin. Cubs Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, the manager of the Cubs' Class AAA Iowa farm club, has interviewed, as has former Cleveland manager Eric Wedge.

Other names speculated on are Washington coach Pat Listach and former Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu.

"(Owner) Tom Ricketts and I will have a lot of dialogue, and we'll continue the process here," Hendry said. "I still don't have a time frame of a conclusion. The goal always was to do it the right way and meet the right people and get deep into the process and also give Mike a chance to manage the ballclub, which he's done very, very well.

"I think the process has gone exactly the way we said it would, and we'll just move to the next phase, as you say."

The Cubs were 51-74 when Quade took over. They had won just five of their previous 25 games when Piniella left to take care of his ailing mother.

Hendry noted the turnaround.

"It's been an extremely well-run club," he said. "We've won a lot of games. From Day 1, I said that wasn't going to be a requirement for Mike to be a contender in the end, but it's sure been nice."

Hendry was asked, "Why not Quade?"

"I said from Day 1 Mike would be a candidate from the first day Lou left," Hendry said. "We always knew what kind of baseball guy he was. I think a lot of people were surprised when we named him manager for the rest of the season. And he's certainly done nothing but enhance his situation and be strongly considered at the end."

That Day 1 came in Washington, where Quade called his troops together. He admitted the club did better than he thought it might.

"Probably, in all honesty, beyond expectations," he said. "But there's so much that goes into this, and it starts with the guys in that clubhouse. We've talked about the pitching the entire time, which has been so important. It's gone about as well as it could have record wise, and obviously, we're thrilled about that. I'm going to keep going back to the fact that we asked them that day in Washington to finish this thing with the kind of effort that they should give and that would allow us to play well and get better.

"Because this season has been a rough one, we didn't want this last six weeks to be rough, and they did it. They came out and played hard. The record speaks for itself. The effort, the desire to get better, the extra work this late in the season for the kids, all of the stuff that went into the last six weeks, helped us achieve this record or whatever.

"It was a real productive month and a half. That's what we wanted. That's what we got."

To a man, the players seem to support Quade coming back. Veteran catcher Koyie Hill summed it up.

"It's no secret that everybody in the clubhouse, speaking on behalf of the rest of the team, we'd really like to see Quade get the job," Hill said. "He's been through it all like we have. He related to everybody. I haven't been around as long as some guys, but I've never seen a manager or a coach get everything out of every single player veteran guys, rookie guys, bench players, starters, relievers. He brought it out of everybody.

"From early on, we all talked about how we enjoy having him around being our leader."

<p class="News">Bruce Miles' game tracker</p>

<p class="News"><b>More of the same:</b> Even though it wasn't his best start, Ryan Dempster turned in the Cubs' 96th quality start. The Cubs were 58-38 in quality-start games, with the starters having an ERA of 2.09. Dempster threw 124 pitches over 6 innings and gave up 9 hits and 4 runs, 3 earned. </p>

<p class="News"><b>Busy guy:</b> Reliever Sean Marshall made his 80th appearances of the year. It marks the eighth time a Cubs reliever has reached 80 appearances.</p>

<p class="News"><b>How they scored:</b> The Astros bunched their runs over the second, third and fourth innings. They got an unearned run in the 2-run second. Carlos Lee hit a solo homer in the third, and Tommy Manzella had an RBI single in the fourth. </p>

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