I knew Mariotti wouldn't let us down....
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Ozzie's blunder ignites classic Cubs rally
Removing Danks for no reason the key to North Siders’ classic rally
June 21, 2008
BY JAY MARIOTTI Sun-Times Columnist
None of these games possibly could match the hype, right? I mean, this newspaper ran a cover photo of the World Series trophy and didn't start the day's hard news until Page 9. USA Today carried a ginormously long piece about Chi-ball. ESPN, often derided in the heartland as the Eastern Standard Parochial Network, turned up its coverage on TV and the Web.
It was kind of embarrassing, actually, the idea that a double first-place whammy would be treated as such a shocking revelation. Shouldn't this happen all the time in two Central Divisions that include one megamarket and a lot of Hootervilles? Shouldn't the Cubs and White Sox have flaunted big-money payrolls all along? You sat back at Wrigley Field and waited for the inevitable snoozer, knowing it was June, knowing that many Cubbie occurrences and South Side blowups (blowup dolls, too) were possible.
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Ozzie Guillen's unnecessary pitching change cost the White Sox dearly.
(Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)
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And then, in the seventh inning Friday, October broke out. That's when a dull game was interrupted by a managerial brain cramp that ultimately turned a cozy Sox lead into a terrific ballgame and dramatic Cubs victory, sending Wrigleyville into a rocking, quivering, cup-tossing, `W'-banner-waving frenzy. I find it interesting that the principals involved in the Sox demise were Ozzie Guillen and John Danks, mainly because the manager and starting pitcher had participated beforehand in more of the same, South Side-dopey bashing of the timeless masterpiece that is Wrigley.
``You go to take batting practice, and the rats are bigger than pigs out there," said Guillen, seeing no charm in the batting-cage setup under the bleachers, even after the Cubs gave his family a suite for the series. ``You want to take a look? I think the rats out there are lifting weights.''
Said Danks, merely 22 and not nearly established enough to be ripping Americana: ``We'll all be bringing our nose plugs, trying not to smell all the urine over there ... that place is a [bleep] hole.''
Which prompted Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who's a little too big in the business to be jumping on trampolines with Ozzie in goofy TV ads, to chide Guillen and defend his green-splashed workplace. ``If you can believe everything Ozzie says, then I guess you should be ... I haven't seen any rats around here, to be honest with you," he said.
Though acting like a child, Danks pitched like a man in his six innings, allowing only a run and five hits with five strikeouts in only 85 pitches. It made perfect sense for Danks to carry on and protect a 3-1 lead, with the Cubs admittedly baffled by his stuff. Enter the Blizzard of Oz. Normally, it's his mouth that gets him into trouble, but on this day, it was his thought process. With the Cubs looking half-asleep after arriving in the wee hours from Tampa Bay, where they were swept by the emerging Rays, Guillen should have let Danks bat to lead off the seventh. Instead, he pinch-hit for the pitcher and got nothing out of the inning anyway.
``I was surprised,'' Cubs slugger Aramis Ramirez said. ``I don't know how many pitches he had.''
Not enough to pull him. ``He was very tough,'' Cubs starter Ted Lilly said.
Well, the Blizzard yanked Danks anyway and inserted the sporadically reliable Octavio Dotel. You could hear the licking of chops and high-fives from the third-base dugout. Before anyone could utter ``dumb move,'' Derrek Lee and Ramirez had crushed back-to-back homers off Dotel, tying the score and turning all heads toward Ozzie in this meticulously analyzed, scrutinized series. Why go to your bullpen so soon when Danks was performing so well? Why not let Danks find a smidgen of trouble before making a move? Hadn't he retired the Cubs in order in the third, fourth and fifth innings and on one single in the sixth?
``Listen, that's Ozzie's decision, not mine,'' Piniella said later, sensing what was coming.
This was a case of Guillen, the attention hog, imposing his strategic ego on a game when it wasn't necessary. It would cost him tremendously in the bottom of the ninth, when Scott Linebrink, in relief of Matt Thornton, allowed a game-winning blast by Ramirez that dropped into the thatch of ivy in front of the Batter's Eye Restaurant in center field. As beer splashed around the bleachers and Cubdom jumped and gyrated for a good five minutes, as ``Go Cubs Go'' resonated again around the Friendly Confines, you realized this was yet another reason why the Cubs might be destined for October -- and why the Sox still have issues, such as their play on the road, where the're averaging 1.9 runs during an 0-7 skid. Not only is the offense hot and cold, with Paul Konerko ready for the pasture and Jim Thome swinging for the fences every pitch, I'm not at all convinced Guillen is the ``real good manager'' that Sox boss Ken Williams thinks he is. His removal of Danks is Exhibit A.
As usual, Guillen preferred to blame the bats. ``We had a chance and we couldn't get the big hit. If you don't score, they're going to bury you," he said. ``They have pretty good hitters and we have to score more runs."
Afterward, there was even better Cubs news in the form of an MRI. It revealed no structural damage in the right shoulder of Carlos Zambrano, only a ``minor strain.'' There still should be concern about Zambrano, the pitching ace and team lifeblood, staying healthy through the second half of the season. While heeding the wise lessons of former teammate Greg Maddux and pitching smarter these days, with less velocity and more location, Big Z still is capable of a Cubbie catastrophe with his various moods, quirks, Red Bull binges and mysterious cramps.
But at least he's not out for an extended period, apparently. If general manager Jim Hendry can acquire another starter -- Oakland's Rich Harden (4-0, 2.53 ERA) works for me -- they're still a major October player. The Cubs can get by without Alfonso Soriano, whose latest attempts to return quickly from the disabled list were rebuffed by Piniella. ``Unless it's Wiffle Ball, it's nothing,'' he said. ``He's not ready to go. We're going to be very cautious with (the broken hand) and give it ample time to heal, so that when he's back, he's ready.''
The Cubs needed this win. A loss to the Sox, after a sweep by the Rays, would have sounded the red alerts in paranoid Cubdom. ``You're playing your crosstown rivalry team -- you don't want to let this thing slide too far,'' Piniella said.
``We show that we never give up. We have a lot of come-from-behind wins at home,'' said Ramirez, who is mastering the art of the walkoff homer. ``I guess the crowd -- this ballpark is a great place to play. We take advantage of the situation.''
Actually, on this day, they took advantage of Guillen. Now the Blizzard knows how it feels on the other side of life. You engage in a hissing match with a rat, you pay.
