It was rap and snap night Monday at Wrigley Field, featuring Lou Piniella, Milton Bradley, Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly.
After Piniella rapped Bradley for criticizing umpires, Bradley homered and doubled, but the Cubs still trailed the Pirates 10-8 after eight innings as they tried to avoid losing their eighth straight game.
As for the snappers, Dempster allowed six runs over four innings in his worst outing of the year, then erupted in the dugout after walking three batters in the two-run third, punching the Gatorade dispenser with his left hand and knocking the top off.
Not to be outdone, Lilly snapped in the dugout after the fifth inning, when he was ejected for disputing a call by plate umpire Bob Davidson on a would-be strikeout by Jose Ascanio. Lilly ran onto the field to confront Davidson and had to be restrained by coaches Ivan DeJesus and Larry Rothschild, and could face a possible suspension.
Fittingly, all this strangeness happened on a night Mr. T sang “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch.
The Cubs finally got some big hits but watched their pitching fall apart. They blew early leads of 4-3 and 7-6, as Pittsburgh scorched left-hander Neal Cotts for three runs in the sixth. Cotts was booed off the mound, and may have found his way back into Piniella’s doghouse.
Before the game, the buzz was all about Bradley’s comments to the Tribune about what he considered an umpiring vendetta against him since his confrontation with Larry Vanover on April 16.
“There’s nothing good that can come out of it,” Piniella said of Bradley’s comments. “There really isn’t. What we need Milton to do is get to the point where he hits the ball the way he has in the past, and getting on umpires is not a good solution.”
Bradley told the Tribune he felt his incident with Vanover led umpires to enlarge his strike zone, saying some of them may be trying to “ruin Milton Bradley.”
The Cubs were upset that Bradley was getting into a fight he can’t win, putting more pressure on himself to succeed. But Bradley seems to thrive on self-created pressure, and answered on Monday with a two-run double in the second and a two-run homer in the fourth.
“He’s a much better hitter than what he’s shown here early in the season,” Piniella said. “You look at his career, and he’s hit everywhere he’s been. There’s no reason to assume that he’s not going to hit here.
“He’s just gotten off to a slow start. I’m sure he’s a little frustrated about it. He’s a young man that wants to do well, and he probably has put a little undue pressure on himself. He just needs to relax and play and let his natural abilities take over, and I think everything will be fine.”
After Bradley received a standing ovation from bleacherites in the fifth when he returned to right field after homering, he beat his chest with his right hand, causing some fans to beat on their chests in response.
With the Cubs enduring their longest losing streak since 2006, emotions were running high all night long.
“The amazing thing about baseball is the same way you can get hot and look invincible, you can get cold and look puny real quick,” Piniella said. “Now we’ve got to get back to the former instead of the latter, that’s all.”
———-
psullivan@tribune.com
Up next
Tuesday vs. Pirates, 7:05 p.m., CSN
