Tag Archives: Chicago Cubs

Could Ross take the Cubs’ bridge?

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2019-09-22 AnthonyRizzoDavidRoss

Keeping Anthony Rizzo (left) steadied in Game Seven of the 2016 World Series is probably only one reason David Ross (right) may be seen as managerial material—and closer to a shot at it than he thinks.

When the Cubs delivered the long unthinkable almost three years ago, about-to-retire veteran catcher David Ross couldn’t be found when the celebration moved to the clubhouse. He’d ducked into the visitors’ weight room in Cleveland’s Progressive Field to repose with his wife and his two children.

A reporter found Ross anyway. And, asked the man known affectionately as Grandpa Rossy whether having been big enough in the Cubs’ century-plus-overdue return to the Promised Land had him re-thinking his intended retirement. “Oh, God, no,” Ross replied. “How can I top this? If I come back, it’ll be to get my [World Series] ring and maybe yell at [Anthony] Rizzo from the seats.”

The storybook Cub season gave Ross his happy ending. As for how he could possibly top that, the former catcher who’s worked since 2017 as an ESPN colour analyst may get his answer, perhaps sooner than he thinks. Perhaps as soon as this off season. If not sooner.

With the Cubs’ continuing collapse ramping up speculation that manager Joe Maddon won’t be offered a new deal to stay with the team he shepherded to that Series triumph and kept in contention since, the list of prospective successors has come to include Ross himself.

September began with the Cubs having a grip on the second National League wild card. A critical four-game set against the National League Central-leading Cardinals in Wrigley Field began with the Cubs a measly three games behind them with an excellent shot at overthrowing them for the division lead. There went that idea.

That series is on the threshold of ending with the Cardinals taking the first three at minimum and the Cubs taking in the possibility that any postseason hope they had this time around is all but over. All three were one-run losses. Two out of three were lost in the ninth inning. Saturday night especially.

After the Cubs had four deficit comebacks they handed an 8-7 lead to Craig Kimbrel. The same Kimbrel who owned one of the game’s most dominant relief resumes before he made closing postseason games for last year’s World Series-winning Red Sox exercises in cardiac crash cart alerts. The Kimbrel who only thought he was going to shoot the moon in free agency last winter anyway, and ended up shooting barely past the antennae atop Willis Tower when he finally signed a three-season deal with the Cubs in June.

The same Kimbrel who returned from the injured list (knee) Thursday and surrendered Matt Carpenter’s tenth-inning bomb that proved the winning run. Saturday night Kimbrel saw and raised. With a lot of help from Cardinals catcher/leader Yadier Molina and shortstop Paul DeJong.

Saturday night he opened against Molina, starting Molina with a climbing four-seam fastball. And, watching it fly into the left field bleachers. Then DeJong checked in at the plate. Kimbrel opened with another four-seamer that didn’t climb quite so high. DeJong had an easier time sending that one over the center field wall. And the Cubs had no answer in the bottom after Kris Bryant opened with a walk off Carlos Martinez.

Thus the first time they’ve lost four straight one-run games since 1947. Overtake the Redbirds for the Central? Second wild card? Not when they’re skidding while the Brewers are on a 13-2 run that began with sweeping the Cubs the weekend of September 6. It put the Brewers three behind St. Louis in the Central and three up on the Cubs for the second wild card.

This is one hell of a way to play the final regular season series at the Confines. Not even Rizzo’s unexpectedly early return from an ankle sprain Thursday—or his opposite field home run in the bottom of the third—proved inspiration enough. And Maddon wasn’t even aware Rizzo would be ready for duty until he heard it from president Theo Epstein after a pre-game press confab.

Which suggests to a lot of observers that Maddon’s days on the Cubs’ bridge really are numbered. No matter that he’s led them on their most successful run since the years of Frank Chance; or, that he kept them in contention, somehow, some way, despite this year’s battle between the injured list and the bullpen over who could do more to sink the Cubs deeper.

And Ross’s name was thrown forth as a prospective successor by none other than USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale, in a column whose headline began by noting not one major league manager was executed yet—four days before Padres skipper Andy Green got pinked after a grotesque 9-0 loss to the Diamondbacks Friday night. “The biggest surprise in Chicago this winter,” Nightengale wrote, “will be if David Ross is not named their next manager by Thanksgiving.”

The Cubs have been preparing Ross, who helped lead them to the 2016 World Series championship and four consecutive division titles, to the heir apparent, and although bench coach Mark Loretta can’t be completely ruled out, they believe Ross will be the perfect fit.

Epstein himself added to the sense of Maddon’s impending non-renewal, never mind that he can be faulted almost as easily for some of this year’s issues by way of a couple of signings here and a dubiously-retooled bullpen there, for openers. “Honestly, we’ve been essentially a .500 team for months now,’’ he’s quoted as having told the Cubs’ flagship radio station. “If you go back twelve, thirteen months, it’s just been marked by underachievement and uninspired play.”

If Grandpa Rossy’s tires are being kicked as a Maddon successor, the “uninspired” portion of Epstein’s comment looms a little more profoundly.

Ross was a journeyman major league catcher respected for his knowledge of the game, his handling of pitchers (some of whom made him their personal catcher, including Jon Lester with the 2013 World Series-winning Red Sox as well as the 2016 Cubs), and his mentoring of younger players. He’d been one of the Cubs’ clubhouse leaders in his two seasons there, and among the more audible whispers coming from the Cubs’ arterials has been how much his leadership has been missed in the Cubs’ clubhouse since his retirement.

The latter came into very close focus during that 2016 Series. When Ross had one horrible moment in the bottom of the fifth, throwing Cleveland’s Jason Kipnis’s squibbler away and into the seats, opening a door for the Indians to shrink the Cub lead to 5-3. And, when he atoned for it in the top of the sixth, hitting a 2-2 service from spent Indians bullpen star Andrew Miller into the left center field bleachers.

Because the television cameras soon enough panned close enough up to Ross and Rizzo at the dugout railing, where Rizzo gripped the rail almost like he was clinging to dear life onto a skyscraper’s fortieth-floor ledge. “I can’t control myself right now,” Rizzo said. “I’m trying my best.”

After Rizzo admitted he was an “emotional wreck,” Ross replied, “Well, it’s it’s only going to get worse. Just continue to breathe. That’s all you can do, buddy. It’s only gonna get worse . . . Wait until the ninth with this three-run lead.” At the Cubs’ championship rally Rizzo’s voice almost cracked a few times while he credited Ross with teaching him how to be a winner.

A lot of speculation has had former Yankee manager (and one-time Cub catcher) Joe Girardi succeeding Maddon if Maddon isn’t offered a new deal. But Girardi’s Yankee exit came under the same circumstances that might block a new Maddon deal. His young Yankee team still underachieved. He, too, lost touch with his front office and clubhouse. And he, too, had a recent run of head-scratchers.

None more head-scratching than his failure to call for a review at once on a hit batsman ruling for Indians outfielder Lonnie Chisenhall with two out in the bottom of the sixth, Game Two, 2017 American League division series. Every television replay showed the pitch hitting the knob of Chisenhall’s bat. A Yankee review would have meant strike three.

Girardi fiddled and got burned. Now the Indians had the bases loaded. And the next batter, Francisco Lindor, hit one off the right field foul pole near the second deck. Turning a potential blowout into a one-run deficit. The Yankees would survive to be pushed home by the eventual World Series-winning Astros in that American League Championship Series, but Girardi’s non-review call still stung.

Reaching for Ross would be the Cubs’ way of gambling as the Yankees did hiring Aaron Boone to succeed Girardi, with a similar lack of managing experience. How has that worked out for the Yankees? Boone’s managed them to back-to-back 100+ win seasons and a division title this year plus a second straight trip to the postseason. Despite leading baseball in the injured list.

He’s not exactly a strategical genius but if managing is 70 percent or more keeping your players on task regardless of onslaughts such as injuries, Boone should be a Manager of the Year candidate. By the Baseball Writers Association of America and the American Red Cross.

When Ross retired, there was speculation enough that managing might be in his future. All other things considered, it might not be that great a shock, even if it might send Cub Country to protracted spasms of joy, if that future proves to be this offseason, if not a little sooner. And if there’s speculation about him taking a team’s bridge, Grandpa Rossy isn’t exactly in a big hurry to shy away from it. He recently admitted as much to FanSided: yes, he’s got the itch to manage.

“That has definitely crossed my mind, with all the rumors that fly around,” he told FanSided‘s Mark Carman last week, referring indirectly to the Cub speculation, though he also said he wasn’t in that big a hurry to see Maddon’s days on the bridge expire. But Ross is still “flattered” by the thought that people think he’s managerial material.

Former catchers are often the first thoughts teams have when it comes time to name a fresh manager. With good enough reason: their game knowledge is often a given, and historically they win often enough.

Four former catchers now managing have division, pennant, and/or World Series rings on their resumes: Maddon, Bruce Bochy, A.J. Hinch, and Ned Yost. Bochy’s retiring from the Giants after this season; Yost is often rumoured departing Kansas City after this season, too. Their predecessors in triumph include Connie Mack, Al Lopez, Ralph Houk, Yogi Berra, Gil Hodges (who converted to first base early in his playing career), Johnny Oates, Joe Torre, Mike Scioscia, and Girardi.

Put Ross on the bridge of the right team and he could join that company. Whether the Cubs prove the right team, however, may not be entirely within his control.

“It’s a huge honor . . . People think that you’re the best guy to run an organization . . . [but it’s] one of those things that it’s gonna have to be the right opportunity to come back,” he continued. Especially if it’s one of the teams for whom he played.

“I’ll tell you, my heart definitely itches to get into the dugout at times and to be part of something special that I’ve been a part of before, so there’s a push/pull for sure,” he said. “It’s gonna have to be a unique opportunity to pull me away from my family and the sacrifices you make to be in the major leagues.”

The Cubs have been accused of many things in their history. Lacking uniqueness isn’t always one of them.

Funeral to frat party and back in a Wrigley blink

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2019-09-19 MattCarpenter

Matt Carpenter runs out the bomb that proved the difference maker in the tenth Thursday.

You knew it was just round one of total weekend war when a throw to first to catch Kolten Wong in the act was challenged, the safe call upheld, and the Wrigley Field boos rained louder than a heavy mental concert Thursday night. In the top of the first.

And, as Cubs starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks and catcher Willson Contreras ended the half inning with a strike-’em-out (Paul Goldschmidt)/throw-’em-out (Wong) double play,  the cheering from the Confines would have drowned the earlier booing out if both could have happened at once.

Then, for the following seven innings, Wrigley Field resembled a funeral home with Cardinals starting pitcher Jack Flaherty the chief undertaker. Until the Cubs tied things at four in the bottom of the ninth, turned the funeral home into a frat party and sent it to extra innings.

With Craig Kimbrel—returning from elbow inflammation, not having pitched since the beginning of the month—taking the mound for the top of the tenth. Cardiac Craig, about whom it was written snidely that every time he nailed a postseason save for last season’s Red Sox his high-wire act still made it feel like losing.

He struck out former Cub Dexter Fowler on a full count. Then Matt Carpenter—who’d lost his third base job to rookie Tommy Edman, who came into the game late when it looked like the Cardinals had it in the bank, and who hadn’t gone long since late August—hit Kimbrel’s first pitch over the center field wall. That’s what a quick trip back to the minors to fix your swing can do for you.

It also knocked Wrigley back into funeral mode for the moment, until Kimbrel settled enough to get rid of Goldschmidt and Steve Cishek came in to get rid of Marcell Ozuna and get the Cubs one more chance. Which Giovanny Gallegos—the guy the Cardinals surrendered Luke Voit to the Yankees to obtain—had no intention of giving them in his first-ever Cardinals save situation.

Late game Cub insertions Ian Happ (fly out to center) and David Bote (swinging strikeout) were dispatched almost in a blink. And Nicholas Castellanos, the Cubs’ midseason acquisition from the Tigers, who’d been nothing but solid and beyond for the Cubs since, flied out to center to end it.

The 5-4 win pushed the Cubs four behind the Cardinals in the National League Central and one behind the Brewers for the league’s second wild card, the Brewers having flattened the Padres earlier in the day. The Cubs have to win a mere three straight against the Cardinals this weekend to keep pace with them and maybe re-claim their second card grip.

Flaherty’s evening ended after a 1-2-3 bottom of the eighth, 118 pitches, eight strikeouts, a lone walk, three hits overall, and one rudely-interrupting home run, keeping the Cubs otherwise unbalanced with a blend of breakers, changeups, and fastballs a barista would have envied for its smooth richness.

He walked off the mound for the final time of the game so collected he could have been forgiven for saying, quietly, “Well, I guess I’d better be shoveling off.” Even if he knows about as much about the old friendly radio undertaker Digger O’Dell, whose catch phrase it was, as this year’s American League East-and-100 game-winning Yankees know about avoiding the injured list.

And he got a nice respectful hand from even enough Cub fans and he’d earned every finger of it. Even that was just respectful, low-keyed applause and cheering. The real noise came after the Cardinals brought in former starter Carlos Martinez to open the bottom of the ninth, and Martinez opened with a walk to Nicholas Castellanos before Kris Bryant, who’d been kept quiet by Flaherty all night, smacked a single up the pipe.

With Kyle Schwarber and his 37 home runs so far checking in at the plate with the potential tying run. With Martinez falling behind to him 3-0 before striking him out, but with Ben Zobrist doubling home Castellanos, putting the tying runs into perfect position, and with Javier Baez—whose thumb is still balky but who can still run swiftly—pinch running for Zobrist.

It took eight and a half for Wrigley to come back to life. And when Contreras flicked a squirty grounder up the short third base line with Bryant tearing home as if it was supposed to be an unintentionally intentional suicide squeeze, only with all hands safe and first and third, the Confines became as unconfined as you imagine when the Cubs re-awaken from the dead.

Then Cardinals manager Mike Schildt brought in Andrew Miller, whose formidability as an Indian the Cubs remembered only too well from 2016, but who’s been worn down since by health issues stemming from his former bullpen overwork, to face the lefthanded Jason Heyward. Heyward smashed a grounder to second that pushed home Baez to tie things at four.

You got the idea early that even with the Flaherty factor hitting was going to be a challenge thanks to the notorious Wrigley winds, when Nicholas Castellanos skied one that might have flown out elsewhere but hung up for a right field catch in the first, and Jason Heyward hit a cannon shot liner that died a shuttlecock into Wong’s glove playing second ending the second.

And you also got the idea early and often that both sides weren’t exactly going to be in a big hurry to blow plate umpire Bill Welke to a steak dinner any time soon. Welke called so many pitches strikes that didn’t even graze the floor or the outside edges of the zone it’s a wonder neither Cardinal nor Cub decided to serenade him whistling the ancient television theme from The Outer Limits.

But you also knew the delight Cub Country took in Anthony Rizzo deciding to test his recently-sprained ankle by playing first base would be matched only by a sense that it would do a bigger favour to the Cardinals. And in the top of the third, it was.

Flaherty batted with first and second with Rizzo ambling down the line, a la Keith Hernandez, slowly but surely, and practically in front of the mound, aiming as has become a Cubs mainstay to choke off the bunt even if it went near the third base line. Flaherty dropped the bunt, all right. Right up the short third base line. And on his still-balky wheel Rizzo couldn’t get the ball in time to keep the bases from loading.

The pillows stayed stuffed long enough for Dexter Fowler to dial Area Code 4-6-3 with Edman (a leadoff walk) scoring on the play. And Rizzo atoned for his ankle’s betrayal in the bottom of the inning, sending Flaherty’s first pitch to him the other way into the left center field bleachers to tie things at one. Smartly, Rizzo he didn’t run it out any faster than he absolutely had to or could.

The tie held up long enough for Edman to open the top of the fifth with a triple into the right field corner and for Harrison Bader, who’s been as much a struggler at the plate as reliable in the outfield this season, to smack a single up the pipe to break the tie.

The Cardinals got a scare when Wong had to leave the game after ending the top of the fifth with a ground out to first. He fumed over leaving the game and the Cardinals may have fumed quietly with him, since he’s their best player this season by wins above replacement-level.

Then they sent Carpenter out to play third and moved Edman to second. And Flaherty went back to work as though nothing short of an undetected tornado could interrupt his quiet pleasure in his work. You might feel that kind of quiet surety, too, if you took the fifth-best post All-Star break earned run average (1.07) of all time out to the mound to start your evening’s work of play.

Flaherty was so composed and efficient that the Cardinals didn’t even think about getting a reliever up until Martinez got up to throw in the bottom of the eighth, after Flaherty reached 108 pitches on the night. Don’t even think about it: Flaherty doesn’t look like a pure hard, grunting, thrusting thrower; he relies on mechanical soundness to provide the fastball’s power and the command of the breakers.

He nailed the Cubs’ impressive rookie call-up Kyle Hoerner (eleven runs batted in in his first ten games worth of impressive) on a called third strike that looked under and not on the floor, and while Hoerner objected mildly to the call Flaherty simply walked around the mound and went back to work.

Then he struck out his counterpart Hendricks swinging, and Hendricks to that point was working with equivalent composure, not letting the quirky Wrigley elements get as far into his head as a two-run deficit ordinarily might, though he engaged a long yet civilised-appearing discussion with Welke after that swishout before returning to the mound.

He was probably a little more miffed when Goldsmidt opened the St. Louis sixth with a sharp double down the left field line. The Cardinals must have wondered about his ump conversation when Ozuna was rung up on a pitch that didn’t even graze the outer strike zone before Hendricks nicked Paul DeJong on a runaway inside pitch.

But Yadier Molina, the Cardinals’ wise old man behind the plate, lined a single to left that Schwarber played on the carom off the heel of his glove before throwing home. Goldschmidt waved home from second should have been a Deadbird, except that he eluded Cubs catcher Willson Contreras, abetted by Contreras inside the baseline seemingly unable to get the handle on the tag.

Which ended Hendricks’s evening and gave the Cubs more reason to be miffed, when Bader stroked a liner to left center off Hendricks’s relief Rowan Wick, right after Wick turned Edman aside on a swinging strikeout. Then Schwarber opened the bottom of the seventh with a single up the pipe. And Flaherty in a momentary lapse of soundness wild pitched Schwarber to second while working to Ben Zobrist, before Zobrist grounded to second to push Schwarber to third.

And the Cubs’ basepath issues reared up and bit them flush on the fanny, when Contreras bounced one right back to Flaherty and Flaherty bagged the Schwarbinator in a 1-2-5-6 rundown out before Heyward grounded out for the side.

The Cardinals didn’t really look all that much better going 4-14 with men in scoring position in the first seven innings, but what matters is how you make it count when you do it and how you hang in there when the other guys decide it’s party time at the ninth hour. And Carpenter spoiled the party in the top of the tenth.

Leaving the Cubs to resist the temptation toward counting the days and accept the temptation to counting the ways they might keep both feet from their seasonal graves. They’d rather not be shoveling off just yet.

Want a blood feud this weekend? You may get one in Chicago

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2019-09-19 WrigleyFieldSignForget the wild card races for a few moments. Have a good gander at the National League Central. Where the Cardinals and the Cubs entered Thursday’s play numeros uno and two-o in the division.

With a measly three games between them in the standings. And, count them, seven games yet to play against each other including three to end the regular season. You wanted an honest-to-goodness rivalry to take the season to the wire? You’ve got it now in the NL Central.

The Red Sox’s dissipation thanks mostly to their starting pitching means no Yankee-Red Sox duel to the death to finish. The American League Central is down to the Twins and the Indians with four games between them in the standings, but such as it is their rivalry seems more like a Friday night bowling league. There’s no blood feud there. Yet.

The western divisions in both leagues are so locked up that both champions-in-waiting (the Astros and the Dodgers) left their age-old or mere territorial rivals behind as far as New York City’s D train leaves 205th Street in the north Bronx when it arrives near Coney Island.

The eastern divisions are sewn up snugly enough, though there’s a vague potential for all-out war if, somehow, by some heretofore unseen alchemy, the Nationals and the Mets end up in the wild card game with one of them getting to deal with the Braves in a division series.

And the wild card rumbles are enough fun, even if you think there’s something just a little out of whack with sitting on the edge biting your nails to the nubs over the thrills, spills, and chills of seeing who’s going to end up . . . in second or even third place but with a postseason ticket regardless.

No, the real blood feuding resumes Thursday night in Wrigley Field. Which will be the Friendless Confines if you’re a Cardinals fan.

Where there’s about as much love or respect for the Cardinals as there was between Frank Hamer and Bonnie & Clyde. Where the legend may still hold that one season’s antics so enraged Hall of Famer Bob Gibson that he begged his manager to pitch him out of turn just for the pleasure of using the Cubs for target practise an extra time or two.

Bad enough the Cardinals’ Thursday starter Jack Flaherty entered as one of the National League’s hottest second-half pitchers. Worse: the Cubs only hit .168 against him with a .297 on-base percentage. Their best swinger against Flaherty, Anthony Rizzo, is down for the count with an ankle injury. Without the only Cub who hits higher than .250 against him—and Rizzo’s hit .533—Flaherty can start the game like a man sinking into a delicious hot tub.

Especially because his Cubs starting opponent, Kyle Hendricks, is a Cardinals pinata by comparison. The Redbirds have hit .249 with a .309 on-base percentage against Hendricks lifetime. The big swinger? Marcell Ozuna, who brings a 1.124 OPS against Hendricks lifetime into the game. Hendricks can’t exactly think about starting in a hot tub. He might have an early shower in which to think afterward if a) he’s not careful and b) his changeup betrays him.

But all September long the Cubs are a game over .500 and the Cardinals, two. But the Cubs just dropped a pair to the lowly but feisty Reds and woke up Thursday morning the winners of six out of their last ten compared to the Cardinals winning five of their last ten.

What a difference a few years makes. As ESPN reporter Jesse Rogers observes, not so long ago the Cardinals had issues on the basepaths, in the field, and out of the bullpen, but that was then and this is now: it’s the Cubs who now lead the league in outs on the bases, sit second in the league in errors (losing Rizzo doesn’t hurt at the plate alone), and haven’t converted more than 58 percent of their bullpen save opportunities.

And his colleague Bradford Doolittle observes that this year’s Cardinals do all the little things right but seem to think the big things are too big, while this year’s Cubs do the big things right while the little things seem not beyond but unknown to them by comparison. Tonight they’re going to test Rizzo’s ankle by letting him play first base. Think the Cardinals might test him the hard way with a few bunts?

There’s also that pesky location factor. The Cubs finish the home portion of their regular season this weekend before playing six on the road to finish, and their 31-44 road record to this point doesn’t exactly bode for getting their kicks on Route 66 or anywhere else. The Cardinals aren’t exactly road hogs, either, but their 36-38 road record when they woke up Thursday morning could turn just as easily into a 40-38 road record when they go to bed Sunday night.

Doolittle thinks Cardinal fans, despite their long standing reputation as being among baseball’s best, suddenly have “a sense of impending doom . . . A lot of people I talk to seem raw that the team didn’t trade for another starter at the deadline, even though their rotation has been lights-out ever since . . . They want to believe, but they aren’t all the way there yet. If the Cards flop against the Cubs, it could get a little ugly in St. Louis.”

Since 2017 the Cubs have actually been 20-5 against the Cardinals in the Confines. What does he think it’s going to get in Chicago if the Cubs flop against the Cardinals this weekend—pretty?

A one-time Cub broadcaster who devolved to become an American president once proclaimed morning in America. Just because it’s still only three years, just about, since their last World Series conquest doesn’t mean Cub Country would proclaim morning in America if the Cubs plotz this weekend.

 

 

 

Ultimate destruction

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2019-08-16 BryceHarper

Hitting the salami that ate the Cubs.

Forget the proverbial meal and stewardess. What Bryce Harper hit in the bottom of the ninth in Philadelphia Thursday night should have had astronauts on board.

A game-ending grand slam hit that vapourises a three-run deficit is called colloquially the ultimate grand slam. There are now 29 such salamis in major league history. Harper’s made “ultimate” seem like an understatement.

One night after he led the Phillies to a blowout of the Cubs with a pair of bombs, with neither team nor the Citizens Bank Park aware of a dangerous standoff between a narcotics suspect that wounded six Philadelphia police officers on the north side, Harper continued defying the 2019 narrative calling his season an absolute bust.

He also defied the ugly 1980s-throwback uniforms the Phillies wore Thursday night. The powder-blue threads with pipings down the sleeves, the sides, and the pant leg sides, the that’s-so-80s P logo with the supposed-to-be baseball seam curve inside the loop, with the maroon trim and caps that looked more like caked dried blood than true maroon.

Well, maybe he didn’t there. Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt hit 583 major league home runs in those threads. Most of his home runs were conversation pieces, too. But even the greatest all-around third baseman ever to play major league baseball never did what Harper did Thursday night.

With the bases loaded, one out, and two Phillies runs already home to close a deficit to 5-3, Harper launched a Derek Holland service into the second deck past the right field foul pole. He stood in the box for a moment, holding his bat downward in front of him, watching the ball fly away.

Some accuse him of just standing and admiring the shot. If they’re right, so what. Show me any one of them who’d say they wouldn’t stop to admire it if and when they might hit such a blast, and I’ll show you people who’d flunk a polygraph before the first question is placed in front of them.

From the batter’s box standpoint, though, it looked more as though Harper needed to be dead last certain the ball would stay fair, since it flew straight over the foul line to begin before it tailed away to the left and landed fair about seven rows up that second deck.

Then he shot around the bases like the Road Runner giving Wile E. Coyote the famous bottle cork-popping tongue razz before hitting the jets and going birdius supersonicus absurdius, right into the crowd of Phillies that waited to mob him as though he were the fifth member of the Beatles.

About the only thing to fear when Harper hit the jets was a possibility of his passing Rhys Hoskins running home from first base ahead of him. Except that Harper’s linger in the batter’s box enabled all three Phillie runners to put enough distance behind them that Harper could afford going beep-beep! and tearing up the ground behind his backwash.

Until that point, Harper spent his Thursday evening getting hit by a Yu Darvish pitch and stealing second only to be stranded in the bottom of the first, striking out to end the bottom of the third, striking out to open the top of the sixth, and hitting a runner-advancing ground out in the bottom of the eight.

Darvish had one of the best outings of his rocky Cubs tenure, striking out ten, and holding a nifty 5-0 lead before Cubs manager Joe Maddon decided it was time to open the bullpen gates. With the Cubs—now tied with the Cardinals for the National League Central lead, and not always looking like division contenders even in their wins of late—having an injury-added-to-insult bullpen that sometimes gets mistaken for those ill pens out of New York, Boston, Washington, and Atlanta, to name a few.

The Phillies snuck one home in the bottom of the eighth on a base hit to right off Brad Wick, spoiling the Cubs shutout, but concurrently spoiling the Phillie rally when Hoskins got himself thrown out trying to score behind Quinn.

But then they chased Wick in the bottom of the ninth, with a little help from Cubs shortstop David Bote—playing there with regular Javier Baez out ill—committing a  throwing error on Cesar Hernandez’s one-out grounder. Scott Kingery singled promptly to set up first and second and pinch hitter Brad Miller promptly singled Hernandez home to set up first and third.

Out came Wick, in came Holland. Into right center went Roman Quinn’s single sending Kingery home, and down to first to load the pads went Hoskins after he was hit by a Holland pitch on 1-2. Here came Harper. There went the ball game. Cubs radio host Julie DiCaro tweeted, “#cubs group therapy tonight.”

“Before I went to the plate, I touched my heart and I was thinking to myself: ‘Why am I not jittery? Why am I not excited?’ But that’s just how I am,” said Harper, whose off-the-charts hitting in some two hundred high leverage situations all season long puts the lie to his starting his mammoth new thirteen-year contract as a high-priced dud.

“I go up there, and each at-bat is the same,” he continued. “I don’t think about bases loaded. I try to get a pitch I can drive and hopefully good things happen. I love those moments. I love those opportunities. I think it helped me a lot from a young age going through those emotions and having those opportunities at 8, 9, 10 years old in big-time games going to different states and cities playing for a lot of teams.

“I just love it. It’s a lot of fun,” he added. “These fans do expect that, and I expect to do that for them on a nightly basis. And if I don’t, they’ll let me know, and I like that too.”

Harper’s blast also meant that, since his premiere in 2012, he’s second only to Atlanta’s Josh Donaldson (seven) for game-ending home runs in the Show. It also left him with seven bombs and fifteen steaks in his past twelve games.

He chopped a Holland sinker foul to open. He fouled off another sinker. He laid off a changeup missing outside by a hair. He chopped another sinker foul. Then he chopped Holland’s and the Cubs’ heads off, when the Chicago lefthander tried yet another sinker and it sailed up to the plate, in the middle and a little inside.

“Knowing his sinker was his best pitch,” Harper said, “(I) kind of cheated the best I could on the inside part of the plate and was able to keep it fair.”

“You have to give credit to where it’s due,” Holland said. “Tip your hat to him.”

It left the Cubs feeling more than just a little abused after being swept in Philadelphia. They’ve felt that way a lot on the road this season. “With the road struggles, being able to win a game here would have been nice,” said Anthony Rizzo, who went two-for-five with a run scored and two driven in Thursday night. “But we didn’t. It’s definitely tough at this part of the season, as opposed to April and May when this happens.”

Darvish continued shaking off his earlier-season struggles to add to a string that now features 26 consecutive innings pitched without surrendering a single walk. He had no problem with manager Joe Maddon lifting him after seven, either. “After the fourth inning I started losing my mechanics,” Darvish admitted. “I think it was a good decision . . . The numbers show good, but I don’t feel that good.”

Nobody in Cubs fatigues or in Cub Country felt that good after Harper shot the moon in the bottom of the ninth. “That one is going to leave a mark,” Maddon said. Leave a mark? More like it blew a hole through the Cubs, whose 23-38 road record to date portends disaster if they reach the postseason. And who have twenty road games yet to play the rest of the season.

With one swing Harper finished yanking the Phillies to a game behind for the second National League wild card. It hasn’t been all fun, fun, fun for these phun-loving Phillies this year, either. But as Thursday night starting pitcher Drew Smyly said, “I think everyone who watches baseball expects him to do that every time he’s up. He’s fun to watch.”

Except when he’s having his fun at your expense.

 

Wounded cops and battered Cubs

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2019-08-17 BryceHarperRhysHoskins

Bryce Harper gives Rhys Hoskins props after Harper’s first-inning bomb started a Wednesday night Phillies blowout . . . unaware, likely, that six Philly cops were wounded in gunfire with a barricaded suspect.

A self-barricaded narcotics suspect in a home on the north side of Philadelphia. A standoff with police involving over an hour’s worth of gunfire exchanges, maybe more, and six  officers wounded.

The standoff began shortly before the Phillies faced the Cubs at Citizens Bank Park Wednesday night. It was still ongoing after the Phillies delivered a far less fatal kind of gunfire at the Cubs good for ten runs before the third full inning expired. It was still ongoing after Bryce Harper hit his second home run of the night.

And it was still ongoing, apparently, after the Phillies finished what they started, an 11-1 blowout of the National League Central leaders.

None of the six wounded cops was injured gravely, thankfully, though the city’s police commissioner Richard Ross said several of the cops who responded to the barricader and got into the house had to escape by jumping through windows. At one point the standoff that began late in the Philadelphia afternoon had nearby Temple University’s Health Sciences Center on lockdown.

Cole Hamels made his third start since returning from the injured list and his first in Philadelphia since leaving the Phillies in a then non-waiver trade deadline deal with the Rangers four years earlier. The audience cheered him appreciatively when he batted in the top of the third, but it was hard to tell whether it was thanks for the memories past or thanks for the clobbering the Phillies were giving him this night.

While police continued trying to resolve the standoff without any further injury or damage, and word emerged that there was a second narcotics suspect in the house aside from the shooter, the Phillies came to bat after starting pitcher Aaron Nola rid himself of the Cubs in the top of the first with a ground out sandwiching a pair of swinging strikeouts.

They didn’t give Hamels a chance to settle into any groove remotely similar in the bottom of the first. Rhys Hoskins singled with one out and an old nemesis named Bryce Harper stepped up to the plate. It’s not that Harper has that impressive a set of past performance papers against Hamels, it’s that Hamels knocked Harper down notoriously during Harper’s rookie season in Washington.

But this time Harper delivered the knock. After looking at a changeup on the low inside corner for an opening strike, he drove a fastball away into middle of the left center field seats. Just like that the Phillies had a 2-0 advantage. Hamels had no way of knowing what was to follow from there. By the time he learned, he must have been shaking his head in the clubhouse muttering, Wha’happened?

Wha’happened was the opening result of Charlie Manuel, returning to the dugout as the Phillies’ hitting coach for the rest of the season, taking the Phillies by the horns and all but ordering them to lighten up, inhale at the plate. Sort of.

They had all the data they could possibly need to help them. But unless they could relax while measuring the situations and the pitches, they weren’t going to hit anything but the pine after returning to the dugout.

“We have to get back to enjoy playing the game and enjoy situational hitting, do things correct, move the runners, have a lot of fun,” said Manuel, taking over for John Mallee, a hitting coach who knew and delivered the data but couldn’t seem to marry it to the hitters properly.

“I think the environment can be different as far as talking to the guys and letting them talk to me,” Manuel continued. “We need to get better. We have a talented team.”

They’d beaten the Cubs 4-2 on Tuesday night to begin Manuel’s sort of homecoming. But what they did to continue the celebration Wednesday night defied practically everything else attached to the Phillies this year. Logic was only the first victim of that defiance.

Hoskins and Harper wasted no time proving Manuel right in the first. More Phillies saw and raised in the bottom of the second. When Roman Quinn led off taking a full-count walk and Cesar Hernandez hit Hamels’s first service for a double to the back of center field. When Nola himself, following a swinging strikeout, shot an arrow through the left side of the infield to send Quinn home. When Hoskins sent home Hernandez with a sacrifice fly and J.T. Realmuto doubled Nola to third.

The bad news was Harper working out a walk to load the bases but the Phillies stranding the ducks on the pond when Jean Segura struck out. The good news was the Phillies wasting no time atoning for that in the bottom of the third.

Three straight pitches from Hamels—who got a nice ovation from his former home fans when he batted in the third—and it was a double off the left center field padding by Scott Kingery, Quinn dropping a clumsy looking bunt but still beating it out for a base hit, and Hernandez dumping the proverbial quail into center to score Kingery.

With Adam Haseley at the plate the Phillies got a little more daring, executing a flawless double steal to set up second and third. And Haseley thanked his mates for their derring-do by beating out a grounder to first allowing Quinn to score and Hernandez to third.

Hamels’s Philadelphia homecoming ended almost before it began, and Alec Mills came in for the Cubs with Nola himself coming to the plate.

And despite showing bunt briefly Nola walked on four pitches to load up the pads once again. Hoskins slashed a hard enough grounder that Cubs shortstop Baez could throw home to force Hernandez at the plate for the first out. But there was no defense for Realmuto fouling himself into an 0-2 count before launching a cruise missile into the left field seats, just past the foul pole.

Almost out of nowhere, the Phillies jumped all over the Cubs for ten runs before three full innings were in the books. The Citizens Bank Park crowd began chanting Manuel’s first name gleefully.

If you can’t have fun while you’re dropping ten on the other guys, you’ve got problems even Manuel can’t fix. The Phillies broadcast team was having even more fun after that than they already had stationed behind the Phillies’ dugout for the evening. They even let the Phillie Phanatic plop Village People-like headgear onto their domes as the sides changed for the eighth as “Y.M.C.A.” pounded around the ballpark.

After two comparatively quiet innings during which Nola stayed in cruise control and Mills gamely held fort for the Cubs since Realmuto’s salami, Harper—who’d singled near the end of the third, before being wasted by a followup Area Code 6-4-3—looked at two high and outside pitches before sending a middle low fastball into the second deck behind right field to lead off the bottom of the sixth.

For the most part Nola cruised his way through the first six innings. He blended his breaking balls and his fastball into a cocktail all but guaranteed to send the Cubs into a stupor at the plate. About the only thing close to a real battle came to open the top of the seventh, when Kris Bryant wrestled him to a full count, including three straight foul offs, before sending a slightly hanging breaker to the near rear of the lower left field seats.

Nola could afford to be generous by then if that was his mood. That was only the third Cub hit off him all night long. The first one, a leadoff single by Anthony Rizzo in the top of the second, turned into Javier Baez forcing Rizzo at second and deciding rather futilely that it was worth challenging Realmuto’s throwing arm, Realmuto springing out of his crouch faster than a jack-in-the-box to throw a dead-on tracer, nailing Baez with the reply, “Ain’t worth it, bro.”

You felt sorry for Mills. Mop-up relief? Mills had to clean up a chemical spill, comfortable perhaps only in the thought that it wasn’t his bright idea to have ducks on the pond when Realmuto drilled him in the third. He was a one-man hazmat team for the Cubs otherwise, if you didn’t count Harper’s sixth inning-opening smash, and it went for so little there must have been moments when he felt like the last man standing on the planet.

It was both the tenth time the Phillies scored in double figures on the year and only the second time Hamels didn’t get past three innings on the year. But somehow, some way, it seemed to mean a lot more to both the Phillies and the home audience this time.

Before Juan Nicasio came on to pitch the top of the ninth as rain began hitting the ballpark and the field, the news came that the final two Philadelphia police still inside the north side house were now out of the house alive and reasonably well, considering, extracted by S.W.A.T. team members “with stealth,” Ross told reporters near the scene.

The rain came down a little more firmly as the Cubs’ trade deadline acquisition Nick Castellanos rapped a one-out base hit to right center. But Nicasio struck Bryant out while Castellanos took second on defensive indifference. Castellanos then took third on further defensive indifference as Rizzo looked at ball two. But then Rizzo flied out to the left field corner to put the blowout firmly in the bank.

The six wounded cops, meanwhile, were reported treated and released from a hospital about half an hour after the game ended.

On the assumption that very few if anyone in the ballpark knew what was happening on the north side of town, both the Phillies and their fans were going to walk from a house of pleasure through a not so gentle, not so good gray night, into news about which the most positive thing to say was thank God it wasn’t far worse. So far.

UPDATE: The suspect who stood off and exchanged gunfire with Philadelphia police, identified as Maurice Hill, was finally apprehended around midnight Eastern time. Philadelphia police commissioner Richard Ross himself took the unusual step of joining Hill’s attorney in trying to negotiate Hill out of the house in which he barricaded himself.

News reports indicated the standoff began at 4:30 Eastern time, when police attempted to serve Hill with an arrest warrant on narcotics related charges. The Phillies and the Cubs were preparing to play Wednesday night’s game at the time.