Leave it to Lieber

Cubs' most consistent starter provides quality, quantity

Jon Lieber tossed six scoreless innings Sunday, lowering his Cactus League ERA to 1.80. AP

By John Donovan, CNNSI.com

MESA, Ariz. -- A full five innings into another meaningless exhibition game in the Cactus League, all the players doing their in-between innings thing, and everyone in the stands at a packed HoHoKam Park cranes to see into the Chicago Cubs' dugout.

Sure as a Sammy Sosa homer, Jon Lieber comes trotting out for the top of the sixth.

A meaningless exhibition game. In March. Against a traveling squad of just about nobody from the Chicago White Sox. The sixth inning. And the Cubs' No. 1 was still pitching.

"Plus, he wanted to go on more," Cubs manager Don Baylor said after finally talking Lieber down after six full innings. "But what else is new?"

Everyone needs an ace. The Red Sox have Pedro. The Braves have Maddux. There are maybe -- maybe -- 10 more in the majors who legitimately qualify as aces.

The Cubs have one. They have Lieber.

Sunday, in a cross-town Chicago showdown thousands of miles from the Windy City, the big right-hander showed exactly why he is the man the Cubs will bank on this summer. It wasn't how he pitched, so much, though that was pretty impressive. It's the fact he pitched, and pitched, and pitched, way above and beyond the call of spring training duty.

Six innings? Against a White Sox team without Magglio Ordonez or Frank Thomas?

Really, what was Lieber trying to prove?

Simple: He was just doing his job.

"I try to, every time out," Lieber said. "Whether it's spring training or whatever. I want to put as many zeroes up as possible."

Lieber did a fine job of doing his job Sunday, giving up one hit in his six innings. Working mainly on his fastball -- it was his slider's turn last time out -- Lieber didn't walk a batter while striking out five. After 15 innings of spring training work, covering four starts, Lieber is 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA. He's walked only three.

It is, of course, just what the Cubs have come to expect of Lieber, a guy who has thrown more than 200 innings in each of the past three years.

The Cubs jumped from 65 wins in 2000 to 88 wins last season in large part because they had one of the better pitching staffs in baseball. Their team ERA was 3.04 with Lieber (20-6, 3.80) and Kerry Wood (12-6, 3.36) topping the rotation. Those two will be 1-2 again this season, with Juan Cruz (3-1, 3.22 in eight starts) and Jason Bere (11-11, 4.31 in 32 starts) and a fifth starter right behind them.

Though the 24-year-old Wood can thrill and may become the team's ace someday, there is no question that Lieber now is it. He's aimed for his third straight Opening Day start and clearly is the guy everyone else falls in behind.

"I don't look at it that way," Lieber said. "When I get the ball, I want to go out there and win the ballgame. It's nothing different that anyone else in the clubhouse."

But Lieber is different, and no one appreciates it more than Baylor. The manager appreciates it now more than ever, in fact, because of the team's spotty middle relief and the lack of a closer now that Tom "Flash" Gordon (27 saves in 31 chances in 2001) could be out for much of the season with a torn muscle in his shoulder. The problems in the bullpen make the starters even more critical to the Cubs' success. It all starts with Lieber.

"He's a very underrated starter, a very underrated 20-game winner," Baylor says. "He's what other aces on other staffs -- that's what he means to this staff. He matches up with those other guys that are No. 1. That's why he's going to win 20 games."

Lieber does everything you'd want an ace to do. He works quickly. He throws a lot of strikes ("strike-friendly," Baylor calls it). He pitches a lot of innings. "He's great to play behind," Baylor says. "You can make your reservation -- if you need to be someplace at 7:30, you can do that when he's pitching."

More than anything, Lieber shows he cares about winning. He stuck around for his six Sunday and wants to do even more in his next spring outing.

In the eighth inning Sunday, after he finally had been pulled from the game, Lieber lingered in front of the clubhouse television set. He was watching the Cubs' spring mopups mop up against the White Sox (the Cubs won 3-0 for their second straight shutout) while many of his teammates dressed and high-tailed it out of the park.

It's what the Cubs' ace does.

 

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