With Julio Zuleta no longer around to bless the bats, Matt Stairs did his best impersonation of motivational guru Zig Ziglar. His hand-made clubhouse signs captured attention, yet in the end the Cubs got better the way they usually do–with pitching.
Fifth starter Jason Bere made like an ace Friday night, taking a shutout into the ninth inning en route to a 7-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds. The shutout eluded him because of a Dmitri Young home run.
That provided only the mildest of disappointments for the 30-year-old Bere, who earned his first complete-game victory in 168 career starts. When Bere went to the mound in front of 30,719 at Cinergy Field, he was concerned only with reversing a recent trend.
The first-place Cubs had lost five of their last seven games. “A shutout would have been nice, but that’s not my main priority,” Bere said.
Solo homers by Gary Matthews Jr. and Sammy Sosa off Reds rookie Brian Reith (0-6) helped Bere to a 3-0 cushion. The second of Stairs’ two doubles finished a four-run sixth inning that made Bere the first Cubs pitcher in almost two weeks to work with a seven-run lead.
With Don Baylor using another makeshift lineup, the Cubs climbed to 14 games over .500 (46-32) and 5 1/2 games in front of Houston and St. Louis in the National League Central pending the result of the Cardinals’ game in San Francisco.
After a moribund 5-2 loss in Thursday’s series opener, Stairs reminded his teammates about their standing with signs he plastered around the clubhouse. The message was simple: “Cubs in first … Houston 4 1/2 games back … Relax and have fun.”
That they did. Eight of the nine players had at least one hit. Sosa’s homer was a moon shot onto the construction site beyond the left-field wall. It was estimated at 438 feet, making it the longest at Cinergy this season.
“It was a totally different atmosphere on the ballclub, in the clubhouse,” Stairs said. “[Thursday] was a poor excuse for a game by a major-league team. We didn’t have fun. We were angry.”
Bere (5-4) consistently got ahead of hitters and didn’t nibble when he was ahead in the count. He threw only 103 pitches, including just 26 balls.
Young had four of Cincinnati’s eight hits, making him 8-for-8 in the series. But only one came with a man on base Friday.
“J.B. was just in command tonight,” manager Don Baylor said. “He threw strikes, changed speeds.”
Not to mention moods.
