Catcher Joe Girardi turns his ankle stepping on a baseball during batting practice.
Kyle Farnsworth breaks a bone in his foot while warming up in the bullpen.
Moises Alou strains his calf while standing in the outfield.
Not even manager Don Baylor is spared. He spends one afternoon in his office, trying to sleep off the effects of treatment for a nasty ear infection.
And in perhaps the oddest circumstance of all, Rondell White hasn’t missed a game with an injury all season with the Yankees.
So, Baylor is asked during a light-hearted moment, are we seeing the curse of Mack Newton?
“I know this,” Baylor says. “When he was here [last season] we didn’t have all these things.”
Before his tenure as the team’s conditioning and motivational guru turned into a nasty tug-of-war between Baylor and former pitching coach Oscar Acosta, Newton was hailed as a success.
For most of the season, the Cubs’ disabled list was empty as a sushi bar in Paris.
So can the Cubs’ rash of injuries be attributed to Newton’s departure? You would think the franchise that introduced the Billy Goat Curse to common parlance would be spared from another hex.
“I don’t believe in supernatural activity in any way,” Newton said Wednesday from his studio in Phoenix.
Newton still watches as many games as his busy schedule allows. And, no, he doesn’t take an ounce of pleasure in the Cubs’ misfortunes.
“It’s hard to watch them struggle like that,” he said. “I still wish them the best.
“I loved my time there and wouldn’t have traded it for the world. I wish I could have done it again. If I had, I’d like to think we would have had some of the same results as last year.”
Newton realizes none of the Cubs’ injuries have been the type that could have resulted from improper stretching. The players’ hamstrings, groins and quadriceps have been spared.
“A lot of them have been freak,” Girardi said. “A guy pushes off the mound, breaks his foot. I trip over a ball. There’s not a lot that anyone can do for those kind of things.”
Sammy Sosa is not so sure. Always one of Newton’s biggest advocates, Sosa knows what he sees.
“What can you say? It’s there,” he said of the injury glut. “The only way you can’t see what’s happening is because you’re blind.
“This is the year we have so many injuries, and everything happens for a reason.”
A look back at what has happened to turn the Cubs’ roster into a M*A*S*H unit:
Date: Sometime in mid-February.
Victim: Alou.
Injury: Strained muscle in left side.
Result: Misses about three weeks.
On the day he reports to spring training, Alou says he tends to take it easy in the off-season.
“The Dominican players, when we go back home, we like to enjoy our time,” he says, “because we don’t know when we’ll get back.”
That might be true, but Alou later reveals that he had strained a muscle in his side while taking dry swings a few days before reporting to camp.
Date: March 1.
Victim: Bill Mueller.
Injury: Sore and swollen left knee.
Result: Should return the second week of May.
After being held out of the lineup in the Cubs’ spring training opener, Mueller says he is not concerned.
“We’re looking at the long haul,” he says. “Missing one or two games in spring training is not going to make or break us.”
But Mueller’s knee doesn’t improve. The effects of major surgery leave him with floating particles that make it uncomfortable to run. He has arthroscopic surgery March 11.
Date: March 3.
Victim: Augie Ojeda.
Injury: Bruised elbow.
Result: Misses two games.
Ojeda takes a fastball off his right elbow.
“The first day he takes off the elbow pad and look what happens,” Baylor says.
Date: March 5.
Victim: Tom Gordon.
Injury: Torn muscle near right shoulder.
Result: Hopes to return in early June.
Gordon’s injury is so unusual Cubs doctors can find only one other recent case. Gordon tears his teres major muscle, which is not connected to the rotator cuff. It is located below the right shoulder near the upper back.
Date: March 30.
Victim: Alou.
Injury: Strained right calf.
Result: Spends 15 days on the disabled list.
Officials say Alou should miss two or three games, but he knows better after spending time on the disabled list in 2000 and 2001 with the same injury.
“They’re not easy to control,” he says. “Once you pull it, it’s not like a hamstring that you can play with.”
Date: April 10.
Victim: Kyle Farnsworth.
Injury: Stress fracture in right foot.
Result: Should return in mid-May.
Throwing in the bullpen generally is not considered a dangerous activity. But that’s all Farnsworth was doing when he hears something “pop.”
Doctors tell him it’s a “freak” injury.
“They only see [stress fractures] in runners,” he says. “They had never seen a pitcher get this before, especially warming up.”
Date: April 13.
Victim: Todd Hundley.
Injury: Dislocated upper portion of left thumb.
Result: Has been day-to-day for 11 days.
After trying to catch a high fastball from Matt Clement, Hundley sees the dislocation and snaps his thumb back into place.
Hundley’s left thumb already had been bruised from a foul tip a week earlier.
“I’ve been wearing a thumb guard for seven years,” Hundley says, “and then I said, `You know what, I’ll take it off.’ And then–wham-o! You have to be kidding me.”
Date: April 19.
Victim: Girardi.
Injury: Sprained left ankle.
Result: Plays that day but misses next two games.
Girardi steps on a ball during batting practice.
“Yeah,” he admits. “That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve done.”
Inside the numbers
HITTING
FRED McGRIFF’S batting average .219
Many are under the impression that McGriff is a perennial slow starter. Not true. McGriff entered the year with a career .294 average in April, second only to his .301 lifetime mark in July.
ALEX GONZALEZ’S hits 19
The Cubs’ new shortstop had to cool down sometime. After starting the season with 18 hits in 48 at-bats (.375), Gonzalez has just one hit–a two-run triple–in his last 15 trips to the plate.
PITCHING
JUAN CRUZ’S runs allowed 15
Just a third of his runs have been earned thanks to poor defense in all four of his starts. But Cruz is far from blameless. He gave up three consecutive two-out hits after an error on April 16 against the Expos.
ANTONIO ALFONSECA’S hits allowed 5
One of the reasons for Alfonseca’s effectiveness is his groundball-to-flyball ratio. He has recorded 13 groundouts and one flyout, giving him the best ratio in the National League.
Statistics through Tuesday.
— Teddy Greenstein.
STATS & STUFF
HISTORIC COMEBACK
15-8
Remember the Cubs’ April 17 debacle at Montreal, when they scored six runs in the first inning only to lose 15-8? It’s worth remembering. According to research conducted by the Elias Sports Bureau and ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark, there had been only one game with that dramatic a swing in the last 100 years. It came April 16, 1989, when Toronto’s Dave Stieb gave up six runs to Kansas City in the first before the Blue Jays rallied for a 15-8 victory.
BAD OMEN
20-134
The last time a National League team gave up six or more runs in the top of the first and still wound up winning by six or more occurred in 1899. The Cleveland Spiders blew a 7-0 lead to the Boston Braves on May 31 and lost 16-10. The Spiders never recovered, going 11-102 after that and finishing 20-134, the worst season in baseball history.
EVEN WORSE
Another footnote to the April 17 Cubs game was that Expos relievers Bruce Chen, Britt Reames and T.J. Tucker each reached base on singleS. Elias couldn’t say when the last time that happened.
NO SWEET HOME
The Cubs are batting just .197 at Wrigley Field, compared with .296 on the road. A look at the biggest discrepancies among starters:
%% PLAYER H R
Chris Stynes .136 .409
Sammy Sosa .194 .389
Fred McGriff .143 .278
Corey Patterson .235 .364
Alex Gonzalez .276 .324
Delino DeShields .200 .300
%%
One notable exception is left fielder Roosevelt Brown, who is batting .280 at home and .105 on the road.
ON THE FARM
Ben Christensen, in his second start at West Tenn after undergoing surgery last May on his rotator cuff, struggled against Double-A Tennessee. He gave up five runs, five hits and five walks over four innings while striking out two.
OUTLOOK
Vs. Giants
Thursday at Wrigley Field
Jon Lieber returns to the mound after missing a start with mild tendinitis in his right elbow. Lieber is 4-4 lifetime against the Giants with a 3.68 ERA.
Vs. Dodgers
Friday-Sunday at Wrigley Field
Two years ago the focus was on the Dodgers’ bullpen after a fan touched off a brawl by swiping the cap of catcher Chad Kreuter. Now the focus will be on the Dodgers’ rotation. Two of the game’s hottest starters, Odalis Perez and Kazuhisa Ishii, will take the hill in the series.
At San Diego
Tuesday-May 2
This is the site of last season’s turning point, when the Cubs’ bullpen blew back-to-back games in August.
Teddy Greenstein.
Statistics through Tuesday.
