THE CANADIAN PRESS
In an age when athletes tend to make vanilla statements rather than bold proclamations, Ryan Dempster’s prediction this spring that his Chicago Cubs are going to win the World Series certainly stands out.
Rarely do players go out on a limb like that, although it worked last year when Jimmy Rollins anointed the Philadelphia Phillies as the team to beat in the NL East and then went out and made it happen.
The native of Gibsons, B.C., still has a long way to go before his words can become similarly prophetic, but thus far he’s helped back them up. And with the Cubs currently holding baseball’s best record at 45-24, he has no regrets about what he said.
"What are we going to do lose? We’ve already lost for 100 years in a row, you know what I mean?" he said over the weekend in explaining his rationale. "I like our team, I thought our team going into spring training was better than our team before and we made the playoffs. So I thought if we had a better team, why not believe it?
"We’re always told that we can’t win because of billy goats and black cats. Let this team stand on its own as the 2008 Chicago Cubs and believe that we can."
There’s lots of reason to believe in these Cubs and Dempster is among the reasons why.
Making the difficult transition from closer to starter look easy, the right-hander takes an 8-2 record with a 2.81 earned-run average into his start Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays. In 14 starts, he’s thrown 89 2-3 innings, allowing just 60 hits and 35 walks while striking out 75.
Everything has gone according to plan, and then some.
"I was actually hoping for 9-1," Dempster quipped, "but beggars can’t be choosers."
His emergence as a legit No. 2 behind ace Carlos Zambrano has been especially key with Ted Lilly off to an uneven start and Rich Hill sent to the minors after some early inconsistencies. Kerry Wood has performed well closing in Dempster’s place, seeming to find a role his troubled arm can handle.
"I’d hate to see where we’d be without a young man like Dempster in the rotation," said Cubs manager Lou Piniella. "He’s pitched under the scrutiny of being a closer and … I think starting is a much more relaxed state of mind than being a closer every day."
Dempster has without a doubt embraced the change, something he had initially wanted to do last season. Plans were changed when the Cubs couldn’t find someone to fill in for him as closer but after their loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the division series, he was told to prepare for the switch.
The 31-year-old spent the winter running hills, climbing stairs and doing other leg-work to give his core and base the ability to withstand the rigours of throwing 100-plus pitches every fifth day.
Since he’d have to go through the batting order three times a night as a starter, he’s also had to refine his approach to pitching somewhat from the attack mode of a closer. He added a split to go with his fastball and slider but added that he didn’t want to overthink things too much.
"I used to think that, I’d face a hitter and I’d get him out, and the next time up I’d think, `Well he might be looking for that pitch,"’ Dempster said. "Hitters will tell you what to throw, but it’s hard to see that sometimes.
"Pitchers, we’re stupid. You throw two sliders in a row, he swings and misses, swings and misses, then you try to sneak this fastball by him and he hits a double. I try to approach it the same way and try to keep my pitch count down."
It’s certainly working, as Dempster is on pace to outperform his all-star season in 2000, when he went 14-10 with a 3.66 ERA for the Florida Marlins. He was traded to Cincinnati midway through the 2002 season and blew out his elbow the following year.
The Reds cut ties with him in the fall of 2003 after he underwent Tommy John surgery and he signed with the Cubs in 2004. They envisioned him coming back as a reliever and he made 23 appearances out of the bullpen that season before being named the closer in 2005.
He saved 33 games in 2005 and soon after signed a US$15.5-million, three-year extension that expires this winter. In all, he saved 87 games for the Cubs before making the switch this spring.
"I didn’t realize I missed starting as much as I did until I started doing it again," he said. "As a starter you have more of a gameplan, now you have to execute that gameplan if you’ve done your homework. If I face this guy, this is what I’m going to throw him, if there are runners on base, I might pitch him this way.
"As a closer, going into the eighth inning, you’re like `If it’s a 1-2-3 inning I’m facing the 4-5-6 hitters,’ then all of a sudden they get a couple of hits, now you’re facing the 1-2-3 hitters. Things can change in a hurry and emotions play a lot more down there. You can be feeling like crap and not really want to pitch that day and all of a sudden the adrenaline kicks in because the phone rings and you have a lights-out performance.
"It’s two different birds, for sure."
The question both Dempster and his teammates face now is whether they can maintain their current level of play. The success they’ve had has made them a target and Dempster’s prediction has garnered them extra attention.
"They say people will gun for you now that you’ve made the comment. Trust me, there’s no need for more motivation than when you step on that field, you’re already motivated to beat the other team," he said. "It’s not like, `I’m going to try extra hard because that guy said that.’ I just believe in our team and I want our guys to believe in that, too."
——=
LILLY LOVE: The defining moment of Ted Lilly’s tenure in Toronto came on Aug. 21, 2006, when he refused to give John Gibbons the ball during a pitching change on the mound, argued with him and then scuffled with the manager in the tunnel leading to the clubhouse.
That winter the left-hander signed a $40-million, four-year deal with the Cubs as a free agent after turning down a similar offer from the Blue Jays. Some have always suspected a rift with Gibbons helped lead to that decision, even though they quickly mended fences, and Lilly shot that down again after beating his former team 7-4 Sunday.
"I think everything that happened was washed away towards the end of the year and I felt like I left on good terms," said Lilly. "I have a lot of respect for the organization and the guys that run it. I really would like to see them win the division. They’ve got a good club, they’ve got a lot of guys who are hungry to win it would be nice for me to see them win."
——=
NORTHERN TOUCH: Coming back to Toronto meant a lot of ribbing for Ryan Dempster from his teammates about the Canadian boy going home. And while he had no problem taking the abuse, he made a point to dish some out, too.
"I had to remind all the guys on the way in that the beer here is a little bit stronger than it is down in the States," he says. "I didn’t want them to get too crazy."
