The Matt Karchner deal may be the only one the Cubs make before Friday’s trading deadline, which suggests management is satisfied the club is talented enough to win.
“Let’s have at it,” closer Rod Beck said. “If that’s it, that’s it. Most of the team. . . . I don’t think we’ve been sitting around waiting for us to make a move anyway. Last year in San Francisco we struggled a little bit around the trading deadline because I think we were waiting for us to make a move.
“This team doesn’t do that. This team doesn’t worry about that. We just go about our business every day. This is a very confident team.”
The Cubs’ position in the wild-card race has eased the pressure off of Ed Lynch to make any drastic moves to improve the club. Disappointing ratings for Cubs game on WGN-TV also may have convinced management that spending millions to pay the last two months’ salaries of a big-ticket item such as Randy Johnson would be economically unwise and perhaps unnecessary.
Actually, the Cubs can get by without a No. 5 starter after one more start on Aug. 3. With off-days and an exhibition game in between, Kevin Tapani, Kerry Wood, Steve Trachsel and Mark Clark could get all the starts for a three-week stretch that would end Aug. 23.
Whatever the reason for the lack of movement, the players are ready to go to war with the same basic cast of characters that began the season in nearby Mesa in February.
“We’re already 3 1/2 games up (on the wild-card spot) with the team we have,” Mickey Morandini said before Wednesday’s game.
“Sure, you’d like to be able to get a Randy Johnson, a Robin Ventura, a Roger Clemens. But this team believes we can get it done with the guys we have here.”
Rolling the dice: The Cubs are gambling Don Wengert can fill the No. 5 hole for the rest of the year. Manager Jim Riggleman said the Cubs probably couldn’t get a quality starter anyway.
“I don’t know if people are willing to deal a starter to us, the way offenses are taking off,” he said.
But surely some contenders will pick up starters in the next few days. Why not the Cubs?
“In a perfect world, yeah, you’d like to go out and get a proven starter,” pitching coach Phil Regan said. “But I think we’re going to be fine with what we have here.
“The nice thing about it is, even though you don’t want to do it, we still have Terry Mulholland if we need a starter to step in and do that job.”
Is that an option the Cubs have seriously considered?
“We’ve talked about it,” Regan said. “But he has done so well in the role he’s in that we really don’t want to do it yet.”
Mulholland said he’s not holding his breath for the Cubs to make him a starter again. If he does become a starter, the Cubs will have to begin paying him his incentives for number of starts.
Lynch hinted the Cubs definitely will not add any offensive players, meaning Jose Hernandez is in at third, Jeff Blauser is safe at short and Scott Servais and Tyler Houston will continue to platoon at catcher.
Why? Because Hernandez’s numbers aren’t vastly different than Ventura’s, the Cubs already have invested so much money in Blauser that they can’t make him a backup and management believes Houston and Servais handle the staff well enough to offset any lack of offense.
