This is what I thought Aramis Ramirez said Tuesday when I asked him whether he was concerned about further injuring his already sore shoulder:
“If I’m going to have to die, I’m going to have to die.”
All I could think was: Die? For this middling team? Don’t do it, brother!
But as I was informed later, the Cubs third baseman said dive. If he was going to have to dive for a ground ball, he was going to have to dive. OK, that’s better. Nothing the Cubs have done this season should make anyone want to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Chances are, if Ramirez has to dive for a grounder when he returns, he not only will reinjure his dislocated shoulder but break a leg in the process. That’s the theme of this season, isn’t it? Not necessarily that the Cubs have been done in by injuries, though you certainly could make that argument, but that bad things just happen to this club. If it’s not one thing, it’s the other, unless it’s both. A Ramirez injury become a Carlos Zambrano meltdown. A Milton Bradley meltdown becomes a Geovany Soto slump.
If Ryan Dempster isn’t hurt, then Ted Lilly is.
Zambrano gets injured while running out a bunt earlier in the season and, more recently, hurts his back, possibly during another exuberant batting-practice session. This guy is a pitcher, not the cleanup hitter, right? Just checking.
When somebody tells you that there’s a lot of baseball left, you might want to plug your ears. People around the Cubs have been saying that most of the season. The baseball that is left soon will start to shrink to trace amounts. It would be one thing if the Cubs had shown signs of life this season, but they really haven’t.
It took some very trusting people to believe Tuesday night’s series opener against the Phillies at Wrigley Field would be radically different. But there was Rich Harden cutting down the defending World Series champions, a machete having its way with the underbrush.
Jimmy Rollins broke up Harden’s no-hitter with a two-run homer with two outs in the sixth inning.
What, you thought this was going to be fairy tale stuff?
Lest there be any doubt, Carlos Marmol loaded the bases in the eighth, walking two and hitting a batter, then proceeded to walk Ryan Howard on four pitches. It broke a 2-2 tie.
Bradley tied it with an RBI single in the ninth. Can it ever be easy? No. The Phillies’ Ben Francisco hit a solo shot off Kevin Gregg in the 12th to make it 4-3. Alfonso Soriano ended it with a fly out to right field. Perhaps you’ve seen this before.
“There’s a lot of baseball left,” Harden said.
All the talk about there being time for this club to right itself misses a key point: This isn’t a very good team. It has lost five of its last six. The rallying cry all year looks more like a bus-stop bench: “We’re playing poorly, but we’re only (your number here) games out of first place!” It’s no way to go through a season.
The Phillies, who had lost eight of their previous 11 games, had three hits in 12 innings Tuesday — and won. Add it to all the other strange-but-true Cubs stories.
Beyond all the injuries and distractions, there’s something that’s not right. Maybe it’s this: They’re one of the worst hitting and fielding clubs in the National League. And their emotional temperature looks to be below freezing.
These two eyes say the Cubs have looked numb most of the year, bordering on shell-shocked. Maybe it’s because they have been beaten down so much, but there’s nothing in their flabby body of work to suggest they’re going to turn it around in the last 1 1/2 months.
Bradley has started to hit lately, but listen to what he told MLB.com Monday about being moving to the No. 2 spot in the order:
“If you want to give Lou [Piniella] credit for putting me in the two-hole and me starting to get hits, then you can do that. If you want to say eventually Milton Bradley’s a good hitter so he’s going to hit and we should have just been patient, then you can say that.”
I want to say that asking everyone to be patient with Milton Bradley until his hitting comes around in August is asking a lot.
Ramirez had a cortisone shot Tuesday to alleviate some of the pain and swelling in his shoulder. Can the Cubs mask their own pain? Doubtful.
“You want to manage and lose five out of six, let’s see how you feel,” Piniella snapped at a reporter after Tuesday’s loss.
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rmorrissey@tribune.com
