While the Cubs’ season remains on life support, I am enjoying the hell out of one thing.
OK, probably more than one thing. If you could pick what information you wanted to be immediately alerted about during Cubs’ games I’d want to know how many hits Derrek Lee has, how many third to first double plays E-ramis has botched and I want my cell phone to ring any time Kerry Wood gets up in the bullpen.
Take last night for instance. I watched the beginning of the game, then turned on Pat and Ron while I played a couple of games of Madden.
When Pat said that Wood was up in the bullpen, I saved the game I was playing (I love how when you save a game Madden warns you that you’ll lose any progress you’ve made towards those precious “Madden Cards”–oooh, oh no!) and turned the TV back to the Cubs’ game.
There are some things you just have to see. And on the list, somewhere between the cameo Halle Berry’s breasts made in “Swordfish” and the Alec Baldwin “Boy Scout leader” sketch on SNL is any Kerry Wood relief appearance.
My favorite thing about watching him pitch out of the bullpen is to watch the reaction of each hitter after he throws them the first pitch. They all have that, “Oh, shit. I have NO chance,” look on their faces. When you see guys swinging at the slider before he lets go of it, it’s impressive. Last night, Wily Tavares looked like he just wanted to swing three times at the first pitch and go sit down.
Wood was hard to hit as a starter, and routinely finished in the top three in opponent’s batting average, but out of the bullpen he’s an absolute menace. At least when he was starting he was hypothetically trying to pace himself to go seven innings. Out of the bullpen he’s just letting it all hang out.
Ryan Dempster’s a pretty good closer, as it turns out, but I don’t envy him trying to follow that.
Last night Bob Brenly explained why Wood was only going to go one inning after he blew through the eighth with two K’s and only nine pitches thrown. Brenly was right to surmise that the Cubs want Wood to be available again tonight, if needed.
He said, “If you send him back out for the ninth and he throws a lot of pitches, he might be unavailable tomorrow or even the next day.”
I was with Bob until then. I’m pretty sure the Cubs won’t ask him to pitch on an off day in Colorado. Unless maybe they were going to send him to Iowa for an inning. Considering it’s the Cubs…who knows?
The Cubs have a “must win” tonight against an old pal, Roy Oswalt. I wonder who Roy gets to bean tonight without getting suspended? Probably Michael Barrett, again.
It’s laughable though that tonight is a “must win”. I’ve got news for the Cubs, they all are now. In fact, if there’s a way to petition Major League Baseball for some “do-overs” they ought to look into that.
The good news is that the Cubs have the right man on the mound tonight if Roy tries to pull a fast one, or if Fat Lance tries to pretend he’s been hit by a pitch again. Don’t toy with Carlos. He’s had two of his finest moments ever at Minute Maid Park. Remember the big homer he hit off Wade Miller in 2003? And last year he nearly killed Todd Walker on the field when Todd didn’t realize he had a sure double play after a pop-out.
The Cubs are apparently toying with the idea of skipping Jerome Williams’ start on Friday because with some off days they won’t need a “fifth” starter for a while. I’ve got news for them. Jerome’s not the fifth starter. Glendon is. If you’re going to skip anybody it ought to be him. But, by all means, skip Jerome on Friday (it’s a 4 p.m. start, really?) so Glendon can pitch on Saturday. You wouldn’t want to miss out on a chance for him to pitch at Coors Field. You could leave Williams in the rotation on Friday and bring Maddux back on normal rest to pitch Sunday instead of Rusch.
Woof. Glendon or Greggy at altitude? It’s kind of like a Bizarro World version of Sophie’s Choice.
