Michael Tucker left the microphone but was not quite ready to concede the floor. After introducing the next postgame interviewee to waiting reporters, Tucker said, “I can translate for you if you want.”
“I guess he thinks I speak French,” winning pitcher Jon Lieber shrugged.
Lieber could speak Mandarin and it wouldn’t much matter. In any translation, all the Cubs need to do these days is to smile and nod and move on, Friday being the latest example of why they continue to make management look good and opponents look bad.
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Surely there will be those who worry, as we are wont to do, about the Cubs leaving themselves thin in the outfield after waiving Gary Matthews Jr., who now finds himself in a Pittsburgh uniform. But then there was Tucker, who, like his team Friday, could do almost no wrong, including getting picked off first in the fourth inning only to elude the tag at second and watch Ricky Gutierrez dance home for a 3-0 Cubs lead.
On a day in which they would surpass their 65-victory total for the entire 2000 season, it was only fitting they would provide still another example of why all is right in Cubdom, why the baseball gods look down upon them with a warm smile and why second-guessing is warranted only in the absence of anything better to do.
Sure, next week we could be right back to panic city, where–let’s face it–we’re a lot more comfortable. The Cubs could fall out of first in Houston and never get up.
But on an afternoon in which Lieber collected his 15th victory of the season and his 12th win in his last 15 starts while going 2-for-4 at the plate, on a day when Giants pitcher Aaron Fultz intentionally walked Sammy Sosa only to be rocked by a Fred McGriff grand slam in the eighth, on a day that started out with a few worries, common sense eventually prevailed.
“It’s really strange,” Cubs manager Don Baylor acknowledged. “The wind is blowing out [Thursday] and we score five runs, and the wind is blowing in [Friday] and we score nine. Don’t ask me.”
That mystery is as enchanting as it is scary. Bit by bit, general manager Andy MacPhail has built a club that has those around the country still trying to figure how this is happening, a seemingly unremarkable team now 18 games over .500 and not concerned with explaining why.
Count Tucker among them. After not starting two of the previous three games, he had to be a bit surprised to learn after Friday’s batting practice that he was the team’s lone center fielder. But hitting .244 as a Cub (to Matthews’ .222, including 3 for his last 47), Tucker proceeded to go 2-for-3 with a solo homer, two intentional walks and two RBIs.
“That’s baseball,” he said simply. “When it comes down to the last couple of months of a pennant race, you know moves are going to be made.”
At least one more, if Baylor has his way.
“He’s going to play until I find a way to help him out and get somebody else on the club,” Baylor said, sounding as if Tucker, who came to the Cubs via trade from Cincinnati on July 20, won’t be alone for long.
Corey Patterson is a mere phone call away, but in the meantime, Tucker naturally figures he’s up to the task.
“It was a great situation coming over here,” he said. “They told me I was going to play a lot. I wasn’t sure how much. Next thing you know I’m the center fielder.”
And next thing you know he’s in a bona fide pennant race and not thinking too much about how that happened.
“Look at the Minnesota Twins,” Tucker said. “I know when we played them when I was in Cincinnati, they don’t have a lot of guys who can drive the ball out of the ballpark, but at the same time, they just wear you down. They hit balls in the gap and they take the extra bases and they wear teams down mentally and physically. This team is the same way.
“Really good teams find a way to win. And it’s usually the little things.”
Sure, a steal of home here, a grand slam there.
It’s all in the translation.