In the bottom of the fourth inning of Bruce Kimm’s Wrigley Field debut as Cubs manager last Friday, Mark Bellhorn led off with a double. It was the Cubs’ first hit–their first base runner, in fact–and as they trailed the Florida Marlins 1-0, the old-school baseball book called for a bunt. Don Baylor certainly would have bunted; during his two and a half years with the Cubs they bunted more than any other team. Kimm allowed Bill Mueller to swing away. Mueller’s grounder to second got Bellhorn to third the same as a sacrifice, but it felt different from a sacrifice, and when Sammy Sosa followed with a run-scoring single to right and Fred McGriff pounded a high, outside A.J. Burnett fastball into the left-field bleachers, putting the Cubs up 3-1, I wondered if Kimm was responsible for this outburst.
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Under Baylor this season, the team had bad chemistry, and mostly for reasons he brought on himself. The Cubs’ pitchers went south without coach Oscar Acosta to psych them and stand up for them. Baylor was eloquent about his distaste for pitchers–he has an ex-hitter’s bias against them–and he was asking for a mutiny when he fired Acosta at the end of last season. When the pitching soured, he had no resources to call upon to turn it around.
Kimm immediately installed Bellhorn at second base and in the leadoff spot, because Bellhorn, despite a humble .264 batting average at the All-Star break, had a .391 on-base percentage, second on the team to Sosa’s; Bellhorn’s 32 walks put him behind only Sosa and McGriff. Sure enough, after Kerry Wood surrendered the 3-1 lead when Preston Wilson hit a hanging slider for a two-run homer in the fifth, Bellhorn led off the sixth with a walk, Mueller followed in kind, and after both moved up on a wild pitch, Bellhorn scored on a McGriff groundout.
I don’t believe Baylor, with his disdainful ways, ever got the Cubs’ bullpen to string together nine straight shutout innings. Kimm was nothing but supportive of the pitching, saying afterward, “It doesn’t surprise me. I like these pitchers . . . . These guys are all quality pitchers, in the bullpen and the starters.” It was probably the biggest compliment the Cubs staff had received since Jim Riggleman was manager in the late 90s.
