Costas of Living

Dave Paisley

In Chicago, we had the ultimate duel between the crafty old gunslinger and the new kid in town Saturday night. However, the worst performance of the night came from the booth, as usual. It's tough to pick an outright loser, though, because Bob Costas was the most wooden play-by-play guy in living memory, while Joe Morgan managed to keep calling Kerry Wood "Kerry Woods", despite frequent NBC graphics that were spelled correctly. Overall, I give the nod for overall awfulness to Costas.

Apart from that, the early going was a classic pitching duel, with Wood pitching out of trouble a couple of times, only giving up a run on a passed ball by Tyler Houston. Of course, it was Greg Maddux who scored it, hitting a leadoff double then advancing to third as the second out of the inning was made. You certainly can't fault the guy's desire to win. If his team's offense isn't going to get him a lead, well, he'll just do it himself.

Wood managed to last five innings on his 90-100 pitch limit, leaving with a 1-0 deficit, just about as good as Riggleman and the Cubs could have hoped for. Except they were also hoping for some actual offense, of course.

Scottie Pippen sang, badly, but bravely (no pun intended) the Cub version of baseball's anthem "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", featuring the telling line "I don't care if I ever get back..." which seems to encapsulate how the Cubs feel about the playoffs. Then Jim Gray, interviewing Pippen, calls the song "Take Me Out to the Ballpark" while we miss most of the bottom of the seventh as NBC hypes its (possibly non-existent) NBA coverage for the fall. Geez, Eddie, what an incompetent, self-serving bunch of idiots.

After another couple of tense innings where Mulholland took over and matched Maddux, it all unraveled for the Cubs with the advent of Rod Beck on the mound in the 8th. With Perez' grand slam off Beck, any talk of a comeback talk was moot. Goodbye Cubs. You could see it in their eyes and the way heads were hanging in the dugout.

I predicted at the start of the series that the tired Cubs bullpen would be a major factor in the Cubs not being able to compete with Atlanta, and so it proved. All credit to Terry Mulholland for providing an excellent two innings behind Wood, but Beck was done on Monday, and apparently still is.

As the game wound down, it was evident the Cubs were resigned to losing, despite managing to knock Maddux out of the game in the bottom of the eighth. And you know you're in trouble when you're down to your last two outs, the pitcher is due up, and the best pinch hitter you can throw out there is Manny Alexander.

So both cannon-fodder teams in the playoffs have been swept away by the Braves and Yankees. Just as I expected.

The Padres gambled that using Kevin Brown in Game 3 was the right thing to do. To win this one game they were probably right, but it leaves them in a desperate pitching situation for the last two games. With Hitchcock or Hamilton for Game 4 against Randy Johnson and Ashby to go in Game 5 against Shane Reynolds if they lose to Johnson.

We got yet another tight ground ball pitching duel between Brown and a surprisingly good Mike Hampton, who had a no-hitter through 5 innings Of course, as soon as Jon Miller mentioned the no-hitter, the light-hitting Chris Gomez singled cleanly to left.

Scott Elarton came in to relieve Hampton, and so with the game tied in the seventh, who is the guy that can be relied on to untie it? Yes, my buddy and yours, Jim Leyritz. A solo blast to left and the game was 2-1 Padres. The more I see of Leyritz, the more I like him. Even if you can't stand him in your everyday lineup, he's a great bench guy to have around.

The eighth passed uneventfully, except for the worst-executed rundown in baseball history. On a busted hit and run, the Padres' Mark Sweeney was a dead duck at second as Ricky Gutierrez received the ball from Ausmus. Sweeney turned tail back to first, where Gutierrez chased him down and tackled him for the out.

The top of the ninth inevitably saw Trevor Hoffman arrive to close out the game. Would we get the awesome regular season Hoffman, or the vulnerable playoff Hoffman of this week? Everett struck out. One down. Looks like the old Trevor. Gutierrez struck out. Two down. Incaviglia pinch hitting -- strikes out. Game over, Padres gamble pays off in the short run.

So the Padres gamble paid off. They go up 2-1 in the series, but without any decent pitching for the last two games.

So it's on to game 4, where out-of-favor former Mariner teammates Randy Johnson and Sterling Hitchcock go head to head. No guessing where my money is.

about the author

Dave Paisley is covering the National League playoffs for Strikethree.com. Offer to send him one of those spanky neon tomahawks.