In the movies, when the bugler sounds the charge, the cavalry always arrives in the nick of time. The Cubs saddled up in Wrigley Field Wednesday and followed the old warhorse, Gary ”Sarge” Matthews, to a 5-2 victory over the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals.
Matthews, whose three-run homer in the first inning off Joaquin Andujar won the day, appears to be rounding into form at last. But with the Cubs still in fourth place and 8 1/2 games back, is it too late for the Sarge to lead the charge?
”It`s a long way to come back,” admitted Matthews, ”because we`ve got a lot of teams to climb over. But you never can tell. That`s why they play 162 games. If you give up now, you`ve got no chance.”
The Cubs` chances are slim enough as it is, but another loss to the Cardinals Wednesday might have been mortal.
”They`re all must games now, really,” said Matthews. ”You can`t say you`re going to go out and sweep the Cardinals, because they`re almost too good for that. But we need to try to win every series.”
”We feel we must win not only today,” said manager Jim Frey, ”but yesterday and tomorrow, and we`ll feel that way for quite a while to come.
”If we come within three or four games, we won`t have to think every game is critical. But the stage we`re in now, you`ve got to think every game is important.”
For Matthews, who has missed 48 games because of injury, every game is becoming a pleasure again. Even in Tuesday`s 11-3 debacle, his enthusiasm was apparent after each of his three hits.
”You play in order to have fun, no matter what the score is,” he said. ”I`d have felt that much better if we`d won and not had our backs up against the wall.”
Matthews, who came back from his second spell on the disabled list only a week ago, hit a home run in Los Angeles Sunday, and his string of consecutive times on base reached seven until he struck out in the fifth Wednesday.
But he wasn`t ready to proclaim himself the same Gary Matthews who led the National League in walks and game-winning RBIs last year. ”You can`t tell over three or four games,” he said. ”I`d like to go out and play a solid month and see what happens.”
That is Frey`s wish for him, too. ”You know when he`s healthy he`s capable of doing a lot of things,” said Frey. ”He`s a great offensive player. Last year, he got on base a lot of times and had a lot of clutch hits for us in the last month.
”When a guy like that is not in the lineup, it`s tough to read how much you miss him.”
Matthews` homer off Andujar just reached the basket near the left-field line on a day when the wind was blowing in. ”The way the wind was blowing, you don`t think a guy is going to hit the ball out,” said Matthews. ”He threw me a fastball. It was in some, but I don`t know exactly where it was.” Matthews didn`t know exactly where it was going, either, but with runners at second and third and none out, ”I knew I hit it hard enough to score the run, and that`s what I wanted to do.”
It gave the Cubs a 4-0 lead before Andujar could even retire a batter.
”Any time you can get runs early off a really good pitcher, you feel that much better,” said Matthews. ”When you get those kinds of pitchers on the ropes, you`ve got to get them early.”
Matthews conceded that ”because our pitching staff is a little ill right now, there`s a little more pressure on the hitters.
”Those other teams don`t feel sorry because we`ve got guys hurt. Their adrenalin is just up that much more because they know they don`t have to face Rick Sutcliffe.
”I don`t think any club could compete with the injuries we`ve had, but people don`t feel sorry for you, and we don`t feel sorry for ourselves.”
