Ryan Theriot introduced the Cubs’ starting lineup Saturday for the telecast on Fox.
He did not include Derrek Lee, who has been in pain and wasn’t expected to play.
Bobby Jenks introduced the White Sox’s starting lineup on TV. Or he tried to.
He got tongue-tied when he tried to pronounce Tadahito Iguchi, so Fox had to stop tape and start over.
Jenks broke out laughing when he blew Iguchi’s name a second time, so he had to begin again.
Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle urged him to spice things up, make it more colorful. For example, he jokingly told Jenks to call A.J. Pierzynski “the most controversial man in baseball.”
Jenks cleared his throat. He looked into the TV lens and said: “OK, batting first for us, Darin ‘Game Face’ Erstad. Batting second and playing shortstop is Juan ‘I’m Not Guilty, the One-Armed Man Did It’ Uribe.”
(Uribe had been linked and cleared in an off-season shooting incident, thus the reference to “The Fugitive.”)
“Batting third,” Jenks said, “is Mr. Controversy, A.J. Pierzynski.”
But after five or six blown attempts, Jenks threw in the towel and did it straight.
Buehrle was asked to review Jenks’ pregame performance for TV.
“Brutal, man,” he said.
Then came the game.
Daryle Ward, filling in at first base for Lee, kicked a couple of ground balls the way David Beckham would a soccer ball. Lee’s sure hands were missed.
To make up for it, Ward doubled in a two-run second inning to put the Cubs on top 2-0.
Chicago’s sluggers began exchanging body blows.
Mr. Controversy singled to ignite a three-run Sox fourth. One-punch Michael Barrett and good-hitting pitcher Jason Marquis homered in a three-run Cubs fifth.
Ice-cold Joe Crede jacked one out in the Sox sixth. Polar ice-cap cold Paul Konerko sent a laser beam over the left-field fence in the Sox eighth.
Alphabetical leadoff man David Aardsma came on to pitch in the eighth.
Theriot led off for the Cubs. He was familiar with Aardsma from the pitcher’s time as a Cub. He knew what to look for. Theriot tripled to the right-field corner.
“I try to tire pitchers out for the big boppers,” Theriot said in describing his role.
Big bopper Cliff Floyd pinch-hit. He grounded out. Big bopper Alfonso Soriano then singled. Big bopper Aramis Ramirez tripled. Ward, who hasn’t been given much chance to bop, was walked intentionally. Barrett singled to load the bases.
In came young Boone Logan to pitch. Out of the dugout came D-Lee, still in pain and about one painful swing away from the DL.
Wrigley Field’s fans were on their feet. It was a Willis Reed moment, a Kirk Gibson moment, a Roy Hobbs moment — a physically incapacitated superstar going out there to give it a try.
Somebody shouted to Lee from the Cubs’ dugout as he strode to the plate, “He throws hard!”
Lee didn’t know Logan the way Theriot had known Aardsma. So he braced himself for a very fast fastball.
Instead, what he got from lefty Logan was an off-speed pitch.
“I could have swung twice before the ball got there,” Lee said.
After the pitcher ran the count to 3-1, though, he grooved one. Lee drove it into the right-field seats — a pinch grand slam.
Against the better judgment of people who care for his health and well-being, Lee persuaded the Cubs he could swing a bat if necessary.
Lee wasn’t among the 41,101 in the park content with watching.
“It was an exciting game,” he said. “I’m glad I got into it.”
So were Cubs fans, who quickly began a Sox-taunt chant outside bars on Clark and Sheffield streets after the game: “Sweep! Sweep! Sweep!”
For the 24th game in a row, a Sox starting pitcher had lasted at least six innings, the longest such streak in baseball.
For the second day in a row, however, Sox middle relievers handed a game to Cubs on a silver platter.
It was an exciting game Jenks would have been glad to get into too.
Unhappily for the Sox but happily for the Cubs, the only job Jenks got to do was introduce the lineups on TV.
Brutal, man.
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mikedowney@tribune.com
