After giving up a season-high eight runs to the Florida Marlins on Tuesday night, Jon Lieber said he was not concerned that he might be tiring down the stretch.
“I don’t think this is a red-flag alert,” he said after the Marlins’ 8-1 victory. “You forget about it and move on.”
Manager Don Baylor was not ready to forget about it.
“It’s a concern,” he said. “He didn’t have the tilt on his slider. It wasn’t going down and away at all.”
Lieber’s counterpart, Josh Beckett, lived up to his billing by blanking the Cubs in his major-league debut. The Cubs managed just one hit–a single by Rondell White–in Beckett’s six innings.
“Anytime you can get your off-speed pitches over [for strikes], you’re going to be OK,” White said.
The loss, coupled with Houston’s victory, dropped the Cubs four games behind the Astros in the NL Central.
Lieber had some uncharacteristic control problems in the fifth. He walked Mike Lowell to load the bases and then hung a slider to Kevin Millar, who crushed it over the left-field wall.
Lieber gave up a three-run homer to Preston Wilson in the first inning on a 3-2 slider. He had allowed just five first-inning runs in 28 starts.
“I’m not too happy with the location of some of the pitches,” Lieber said. “I have to make better pitches.”
Baylor said it might not be so simple. Lieber struggled down the stretch last season, going 0-4 with a 5.88 ERA in September.
“Last [September] there were a lot of balls out over the plate and not on the corners,” Baylor said. “That was the warning I got last year. This year is a little different. I’m going to have to look at it and see what we can do.”
Baylor has been careful not to overwork Lieber, who threw 251 innings last season, more than any other major-league pitcher. Lieber averaged just 95 pitches in his last four starts before Tuesday.
But his effectiveness has waned of late. Lieber, who fell to 17-6, gave up a season-high 11 hits last week to Florida.
Baylor already plans to give Kevin Tapani two days of extra rest before his next start, which is slated for Monday.
“[Lieber] is a guy we count on every five days,” Baylor said. “I have it set up for him to get [an extra] day down the road. But not right now.”
