Cubs 10, Braves 1

Sparkler: Pie lights Cubs' fire

Center fielder back with a bang; DeRosa slugs big grand slam

By Dave Van Dyck | Tribune staff reporter

9:49 PM CDT, June 3, 2007

Oh, so this is the way the Cubs' grand plan was supposed to look: tons of runs, very good starting pitching and a lopsided score.

Sunday's 10-1 victory over Atlanta, under the heading of "It's About Time," broke a six-game losing streak, though the truth is the grand plan had a brand new scheme.

The difference?

Felix Pie is back—this time for good—and he will bat second behind his buddy and mentor, Alfonso Soriano.

"Hopefully he can give us a spark," general manager Jim Hendry said. "He can catch everything in the ballpark [in center field] ... [and] run like heck, and he's a good offensive player when he's going good. He's got to do his part, but we'd like him to play out there a long time."

While some might claim Sunday's spark came from suspended manager Lou Piniella's tirade Saturday, more likely it was Pie who showed the way.

How?

In the first inning, after Soriano grounded out, Pie singled and scored the game's first run when Mark DeRosa roused the 40,155 Wrigley Field faithful with a grand slam.

Then in the fifth inning, after Soriano tripled, Pie spiked a broken-bat hit into right field that he legged into a crowd-pleasing RBI double. He eventually scored on Jacque Jones' single.

Yes, he struck out in his last two at-bats, but Pie's re-entry to the big leagues produced a 2-for-5 afternoon with an RBI and two runs scored. That's not bad, considering he had only 11 hits in 18 games in his first tenure.

"I'm so happy for him," Soriano said. "It was his first day back, and he had two hits. It was very important for him and me, because he's like my brother here."

Soriano went 3-for-5, including his second home run in two days. Derrek Lee also was 3-for-5 with a homer.

"With Derrek Lee behind me, the pitcher has to throw me more strikes," Pie said.

He's no stranger to the No. 2 slot, having hit .367 while batting second at Triple-A Iowa.

The victory coincided with Piniella's indefinite suspension and Alan Trammell's entrance as interim manager.

Trammell was saying before the game that "what I'd like to have, if I could script it out, is that we play a great ballgame, score a lot of runs and take me out of the equation."

Wow, how prescient.

Of course, it helped having DeRosa overcome his recent slump at bat and on the bases. With the bags loaded in the first, DeRosa was ready for the 3-2 pitch from Lance Cormier.

"I was just wanting to … kind of take the pressure off," DeRosa said. "Pop the balloon in the whole stadium and just get everybody to relax a little bit. I didn't think he was going to throw me anything off speed in that situation. So I tried to swing through it, and I got it up in the air. It was a big homer for me."

The homer gave Sean Marshall a 4-0 lead. That's as many runs as Marshall had seen in his first two starts combined, both losses despite a 2.70 ERA.

"Run support is really nice," Marshall said in an understatement.

Marshall allowed only one run and struck out eight in 6 2/3 innings for his first victory since Sept. 26. Carlos Marmol and Ryan Dempster finished up, and Cubs batters left only one runner on base in the first six innings.

Trammell, ever the optimist, received a congratulatory call in the dugout from Piniella, who watched the game on television from his office.

And never mind that all the runs came in the first five innings against Cormier, who was making his first start of the season after missing all spring with right arm soreness.

"This is what we need," Trammell said. "We needed to stop it any way we could. What we need to do is take this forward. It's just one game. We're hoping this will be something to get us going.

"We're a much better club than we've seen of late. We lost a lot of tough games. But these are the kinds of games that sometimes can jump-start you and get you going."

dvandyck@tribune.com

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