It didn’t take long for Kerry Wood’s temper to reach its boiling point Saturday.
Seven pitches into the Cubs’ 6-2 victory over Houston, pitching coach Oscar Acosta and catcher Todd Hundley visited Wood on the mound to try to settle him down. Wood was seething after plate umpire Bruce Froemming didn’t call a strike on a first-pitch fastball to Julio Lugo.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t think Woody would last that inning because Bruce has a quick hook,” Hundley said. “Woody was getting frustrated and showing it.
“[Oscar] just said, `Don’t let this guy take you out of your game plan and don’t let him ruin your day.’ That settled Woody down and he got back to his good stuff.”
After inducing a grounder from Lugo and striking out Jeff Bagwell to end the first, Wood was treated to a stunning display of power by his teammates.
With a runner aboard, Fred McGriff smacked Dave Mlicki’s first-pitch changeup into the right-field seats for his 11th homer as a Cub and 30th of the year.
“Baseball is about picking up your teammates,” McGriff said. “Sammy [Sosa] popped up and I was looking to hit the next one hard.”
Rondell White followed that advice by crushing Mlicki’s next pitch, a knee-high fastball, over the wall in left-center. That gave the Cubs back-to-back homers for the fourth time this season. But they weren’t finished.
Hundley hammered Mlicki’s next pitch over the center-field wall, giving the Cubs three homers on three pitches. Their last three-homer barrage came in 1999, when Sosa, Mark Grace and Henry Rodriguez went deep in San Francisco.
“That was pretty cool,” Hundley said. “I’m glad mine carried out because this wind is nasty. It was surprising that Dave wouldn’t throw a breaking ball or something soft after [White] hit his.”
Wood had good command of his breaking ball Saturday, limiting the Astros to three hits over six innings.
Wood is 11-2 with a 2.85 ERA over his last 19 starts. He has held opponents to three hits or fewer in 12 of his 27 starts. Wood rebounded from his surprising outing in Pittsburgh, when he gave up five sixth-inning runs after firing five shutout innings.
“Still to this day, I really don’t know what happened in that inning,” Wood said.
It’s of little concern if Wood continues to throw like he did Saturday.
“He was effectively wild,” Hundley said. “He didn’t have pinpoint control, but those guys could not get comfortable against him at all.
“It’s fun when he does do it. Because you know what’s going through their heads: `I have no chance right now.'”
