PHOENIX - In a manner of speaking, the Chicago Cubs' frenetic 2007 season has resembled a high-school chemistry experiment.
Take two volatile components, mix them, and what do you have? Well, maybe something that blows up in your face.
Then again, it just might produce a chain reaction that generates mostly positive results.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella and his ace righthander, Carlos Zambrano, have a curious relationship in that they're probably too much alike for their own good sometimes. They tend to wear their emotions on their sleeves and prone to the occasional hissy-fit. Sometimes their blowups even are directed at one another.
"Carlos always has been an emotional guy," Piniella said when asked if Zambrano, his Game 1 starter against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Division Series, is more effective when he pitches under control and not as if his hair were on fire. "I think he just has to be himself. That's the secret. Don't try to be anybody else. Just go out, have confidence in yourself and let it go."
"Letting it go" is a phrase that describes the best and the worst of both Zambrano and Piniella. And never was that more evident than in their back-to-back meltdowns of June 1 and 2, when the Cubs' already-shaky season seemed to totally implode.
On June 1, Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett got into a heated argument that turned physical in the middle of the fifth inning of what turned out to be an 8-5 loss to Atlanta at Wrigley Field. Zambrano, who had just given up five runs, was angered that Barrett was charged with a passed ball and committed an error on the same play. Barrett, also irked, pointed to the scoreboard as if to say that those five runs were Zambrano's fault, not his.
The two men pushed and slapped at one another in the dugout, prompting Piniella to replace both of them, but the worst was yet to come. In the clubhouse, Zambrano and Barrett slugged it out. Barrett got the worst of it against the 6-5, 250-pound pitcher, suffering a black eye and cut lip that required stitches.
"I'm embarrassed for everybody here because we're supposed to be like a family," outfielder Alfonso Soriano, the Cubs' $136 million free-agent acquisition, said of the Zambrano-Barrett fight that overshadowed the team's fifth consecutive loss, and 11th in 15 games.
The following afternoon, Piniella went ballistic in the eighth inning after Angel Pagan was thrown out trying to advance to third on a passed ball. Piniella was ejected by umpire Mark Wegner for throwing his cap and kicking dirt, an eruption serious enough for "Sweet Lou" to be socked with a four-game suspension, the longest of his career.
Chicago was 22-31 on June 2, 8 1/2 games behind NL Central-leading Milwaukee. They appeared to be a bad team on the way to getting worse.
But then a strange thing happened. Barrett - who had said he would not catch any more games pitched by Zambrano - was traded to San Diego on June 20. The Cubs replaced him with veteran Jason Kendall, acquired from the Oakland Athletics on July 17, and that was only one of several lineup changes made by Piniella as Team Turmoil morphed into Team Harmony. And the Cubs began to win. They went 35-18 in their next 53 games after June 2, a roll that happily coincided with the the Brewers' swoon.
Piniella was an outfielder with the "Bronx Zoo" Yankees teams of the mid- to late-1970s, when clubhouse harmony had little to do with success on the field. He said a little friction doesn't necessarily hurt or help a team.
"A few of our players really started playing good," Piniella said of the Cubs' strangely timed turnaround. "Soriano started hitting some home runs when we moved him over to leftfield. Carlos Zambrano got on a roll. We brought up some young kids who gave us energy.
"My situation and the situation with the fight, that happens with a lot of teams. It really does. I don't see either situation being too responsible for anything."
Still, you have to wonder. What if Zambrano and Barrett had continued with their uneasy on-field relationship? What if the excitable Piniella, who was hired last Oct. 16 to serve as a stimulant for a listless bunch that went 66-96 in 2006, simply folded his arms and said nothing when Pagan was thrown out? Would the Cubbies - who committed $300 million to players during an offseason spending spree - continue to play like the worst team money could buy?
"Since the start of the season, we basically changed just about our whole middle - centerfield [Jacque Jones for Soriano], shortstop [Ryan Theriot for Cesar Izturis], catcher [Kendall for Barrett]. That's pretty hard to do in the same year.
"We had to make some changes because it wasn't working. This team lost a lot of games last year and it wasn't working early this year. We had to make some changes, and we did. We made changes that we thought would help us improve, and we did."
If the Cubs advance to the World Series for the first time since 1945, though, people will point to the contentious events of June 1 and 2 as the kick in the rump that got a jinxed franchise headed in the right direction. *
