tazmocan
Bench Warmer
MIAMI – Talk about sending conflicting messages. While the scoreboard at Dolphins Stadium was advising fans that Sunday afternoon’s game would be delayed because of what official scorer Ron Jernick called “atmospheric conditions,” the grounds crew was busy re-covering the tarp. And neither rain, snow, sleet nor tropical storm Fay made so much as a cameo appearance.
Chicago Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster was oblivious to all that as he waited an extra 22 minutes for his start. He was inside the visitors’ clubhouse, riding the exercise bike.
“I didn’t even know it wasn’t raining,” he said. “They told me it was 1:30, so I slowed down, chilled down a little bit. I watched the handball in the Olympics.”
Who won? “I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t figure it out. I was watching Norway and Romania.”
Put a ball in Dempster’s hands these days, and it usually doesn’t take much to figure out that the Cubs will be winners. Chicago’s 9-2 victory Sunday over the Florida Marlins in the rubber game of this three-game set elevated Dempster’s record to 14-5. He’s a win away from matching his career best, which he set in 2001 when he was pitching here as a member of the home team and still regarded as a starter.
His success now comes after three seasons as the Cubs’ closer, in which he saved 85 games. He ran up mountainsides outside his home in Denver last winter to prepare for the transformation, which the Cubs were eager to try because of injuries to their one-time golden duo of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, with Prior getting non-tendered and Wood given a crack at closing.
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“We knew coming into spring training that he would make our rotation,” said Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who at the time had publicly committed only to giving Dempster a chance to compete for a spot. “We slipped him right into the 3-hole and he’s done just a great job.
“We’ve watched his pitch counts all year, and try to give him an extra day when we could, but I’ll tell you this, his stuff is as good right now as it was early in the year, which is saying a lot.
“It goes to show what good shape he’s in, and how hard he works. And he’s got the mental toughness.”
Dempster won 10 games before the break and struck out the side in his one-inning appearance in the All-Star Game, but the numbers bear out Piniella’s contention that he has held up. In six starts since the break, Dempster is 4-1 with a 1.86 earned-run average, he hasn’t allowed a home run in 38 2/3 innings, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio (45 strikeouts, 14 walks) is better than 3:1 after being just over 2:1 in the season’s first half (104-50).
And he’s been unbeatable with extra rest. He pitched with six days’ rest Sunday, and is now 8-0 with a 1.86 ERA when he has one or two additional days between starts.
Dempster not only was confident he could revert back to his previous incarnation, he also predicted, before the team’s first spring workout, that the Cubs would win the World Series.
“Enough of all the curse this, the curse that, the goat, the black cat, or the 100 years (without winning the World Series),” Dempster said at the time, blithely blowing past the fact that Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano had made a similar prediction a year earlier, which was followed by the Cubs being swept out of the playoffs in the first round by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
But there’s no disputing that Dempster is doing his part to make good on his forecast. Pitching in 92-degree heat and south Florida’s typically stifling humidity, Dempster struck out 10 in six innings, two coming in the sixth after the Marlins had scored their second run and had runners on the corners with no outs.
“Truthfully we gave him every opportunity to win a baseball game,” Piniella said, “but I’ll tell you what, he toughed it out. He was out of gas.”
He also was out of the game when Piniella lifted him for a pinch-hitter in the seventh, with the Cubs trailing 2-0, having done little against Chris Volstad, Florida’s 21-year-old rookie right-hander. Mark DeRosa drew a walk off reliever Renvel Pinto to load the bases, and Alfonso Soriano followed with the first of three bases-loaded doubles to break it open. Aramis Ramirez and Reed Johnson hit the others.
“That’s all they had to do, get me out of the lineup and we’d score runs,” Dempster said.
The Cubs have won six straight series, and are returning home after their most successful trip of the season, one in which they won five of six games and dealt a **** to the Marlins’ pursuit of the Mets in the National League East. Florida fell 4½ games behind with Sunday’s loss, its biggest deficit of the season.
The Cubs are now .500 on the road, their home record of 45-17 is the best in baseball, and they play 19 of 28 games this month at Wrigley. And Dempster is starting to draw notice as a potential Cy Young Award candidate.
“That’s a pretty good year he’s got going,” Piniella said. “He’s just got to finish it out. The way he’s throwing, there’s no reason to expect that he won’t.
“He puts a couple more wins on the board quickly, I think you’ll start hearing a few whispers (about the Cy Young).
“You’ve got to remember, this young man came up as a starter, made an All-Star team as a starter, then we put him in the bullpen where he had to learn to pitch in pressure situations and get out of trouble.
“He’s got more equipment now, more experience. He’s got the split finger for left-handed hitter, he’s got the nice slider for right-handed hitters, and he’s got a darned good fastball for both. He’s got the tools. He’s a better pitcher now, obviously, than he was when he started.”
The only hole in Dempster’s game Sunday was his inability to follow what was taking place on the women’s handball court. Evidently, it was as indecipherable to him as the rapid flicking of his glove is to hitters before he pitches, Dempster choosing that sleight of hand to disguise the fact that he’s changing his grip to throw his splitter.
Norway won, incidentally, 24-23.
As for the atmospheric conditions? The latest reports had Fay on track toward Tampa, where Piniella has a home.
“Gosh,” said Piniella, who won’t be around to put up any hurricane shutters. “I’ve got to call my wife and get my two kids to work a little bit.”
Chicago Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster was oblivious to all that as he waited an extra 22 minutes for his start. He was inside the visitors’ clubhouse, riding the exercise bike.
“I didn’t even know it wasn’t raining,” he said. “They told me it was 1:30, so I slowed down, chilled down a little bit. I watched the handball in the Olympics.”
Who won? “I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t figure it out. I was watching Norway and Romania.”
Put a ball in Dempster’s hands these days, and it usually doesn’t take much to figure out that the Cubs will be winners. Chicago’s 9-2 victory Sunday over the Florida Marlins in the rubber game of this three-game set elevated Dempster’s record to 14-5. He’s a win away from matching his career best, which he set in 2001 when he was pitching here as a member of the home team and still regarded as a starter.
His success now comes after three seasons as the Cubs’ closer, in which he saved 85 games. He ran up mountainsides outside his home in Denver last winter to prepare for the transformation, which the Cubs were eager to try because of injuries to their one-time golden duo of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, with Prior getting non-tendered and Wood given a crack at closing.
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“We knew coming into spring training that he would make our rotation,” said Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who at the time had publicly committed only to giving Dempster a chance to compete for a spot. “We slipped him right into the 3-hole and he’s done just a great job.
“We’ve watched his pitch counts all year, and try to give him an extra day when we could, but I’ll tell you this, his stuff is as good right now as it was early in the year, which is saying a lot.
“It goes to show what good shape he’s in, and how hard he works. And he’s got the mental toughness.”
Dempster won 10 games before the break and struck out the side in his one-inning appearance in the All-Star Game, but the numbers bear out Piniella’s contention that he has held up. In six starts since the break, Dempster is 4-1 with a 1.86 earned-run average, he hasn’t allowed a home run in 38 2/3 innings, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio (45 strikeouts, 14 walks) is better than 3:1 after being just over 2:1 in the season’s first half (104-50).
And he’s been unbeatable with extra rest. He pitched with six days’ rest Sunday, and is now 8-0 with a 1.86 ERA when he has one or two additional days between starts.
Dempster not only was confident he could revert back to his previous incarnation, he also predicted, before the team’s first spring workout, that the Cubs would win the World Series.
“Enough of all the curse this, the curse that, the goat, the black cat, or the 100 years (without winning the World Series),” Dempster said at the time, blithely blowing past the fact that Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano had made a similar prediction a year earlier, which was followed by the Cubs being swept out of the playoffs in the first round by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
But there’s no disputing that Dempster is doing his part to make good on his forecast. Pitching in 92-degree heat and south Florida’s typically stifling humidity, Dempster struck out 10 in six innings, two coming in the sixth after the Marlins had scored their second run and had runners on the corners with no outs.
“Truthfully we gave him every opportunity to win a baseball game,” Piniella said, “but I’ll tell you what, he toughed it out. He was out of gas.”
He also was out of the game when Piniella lifted him for a pinch-hitter in the seventh, with the Cubs trailing 2-0, having done little against Chris Volstad, Florida’s 21-year-old rookie right-hander. Mark DeRosa drew a walk off reliever Renvel Pinto to load the bases, and Alfonso Soriano followed with the first of three bases-loaded doubles to break it open. Aramis Ramirez and Reed Johnson hit the others.
“That’s all they had to do, get me out of the lineup and we’d score runs,” Dempster said.
The Cubs have won six straight series, and are returning home after their most successful trip of the season, one in which they won five of six games and dealt a **** to the Marlins’ pursuit of the Mets in the National League East. Florida fell 4½ games behind with Sunday’s loss, its biggest deficit of the season.
The Cubs are now .500 on the road, their home record of 45-17 is the best in baseball, and they play 19 of 28 games this month at Wrigley. And Dempster is starting to draw notice as a potential Cy Young Award candidate.
“That’s a pretty good year he’s got going,” Piniella said. “He’s just got to finish it out. The way he’s throwing, there’s no reason to expect that he won’t.
“He puts a couple more wins on the board quickly, I think you’ll start hearing a few whispers (about the Cy Young).
“You’ve got to remember, this young man came up as a starter, made an All-Star team as a starter, then we put him in the bullpen where he had to learn to pitch in pressure situations and get out of trouble.
“He’s got more equipment now, more experience. He’s got the split finger for left-handed hitter, he’s got the nice slider for right-handed hitters, and he’s got a darned good fastball for both. He’s got the tools. He’s a better pitcher now, obviously, than he was when he started.”
The only hole in Dempster’s game Sunday was his inability to follow what was taking place on the women’s handball court. Evidently, it was as indecipherable to him as the rapid flicking of his glove is to hitters before he pitches, Dempster choosing that sleight of hand to disguise the fact that he’s changing his grip to throw his splitter.
Norway won, incidentally, 24-23.
As for the atmospheric conditions? The latest reports had Fay on track toward Tampa, where Piniella has a home.
“Gosh,” said Piniella, who won’t be around to put up any hurricane shutters. “I’ve got to call my wife and get my two kids to work a little bit.”
