On Ryan Dempster

The shadows were finally creeping towards home plate on a cool April afternoon in Chicago as Ryan Dempster peered out from the Wrigley Field dugout and realized the Cubs might need him again today. Down 6 to 3 when the bottom of the eighth inning started, a series of walks and a clutch two-out line drive smacked up the middle by Matt Murton had brought the Cubs within a run. One more hit, and the Cubs would certainly turn the corner. Or maybe it would be more accurate to put it on the Marlins, an inexperienced team who couldn't help but think "Here we go again," as another lead dissipated; maybe one more hit and they would settle into despondency.



Dempster had already pitched in three consecutive games, on three consecutive days. He could certainly use a day off, especially to take full advantage of an off day tomorrow. But, since Williamson had already tanked -- walking 3 batters who eventually came around to score in the top of the eighth -- there was now probably no choice for the top of the 9th if the Cubs could take the lead. Maybe Scott Eyre... but nah -- Dusty would give it to Dempster. "Suck it up, and work quickly," he thought to himself. "Throw strikes."

"It's a tight strike zone today," someone must have told him. But that wouldn't matter. The Marlins wouldn't be taking very many pitches when the top of the ninth rolled around if the Cubs moved into the lead.

Then the engine seized, and the momentum stopped short. Jerry Hairston watched a pitch graze the outside corner for strike 3. "So much for the tough strike," Dempster thought to himself as his shoulders reflexively sank back. And that was that. Comebacks just don't happen in the bottom of the ninth in a game like this one.

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Let’s get a few things out of the way first: I was not actually in Wrigley Field. I don't know whether Dempster would have come in, or whether he was still in the dugout watching at that point. I watched the game on a recording in the evening in sunny Austin while I debated whether to turn on the A/C. But it certainly could have played out that way.

Another thing: Canadians are an easy cultural foil. We gotta get that out of the way as well. Humor-wise, that is, they’re something of an easy target in large part because they prefer to laugh at themselves along with you rather than go on the offensive. They just have a quirky sense of humor that way.

I bring this up because Ryan Dempster is Canadian, and that factors largely into his personality. By all accounts he is probably one of the funniest guys on the Cubs, and is known to pull pranks whenever he can, consistent with one who doesn’t take himself too seriously and prefers to enjoy life as a comedy. There’s even uncorroborated stories of Dempster running bareassed down Lincoln Avenue near Fullerton. Although, it’s not hard to imagine that happening with the Jack Daniels specials at Kendall’s or the Long Islands at Lilly’s, which have a way of shattering your consciousness and inhibitions more so than eroding them like most drinks.

Now there's something of a prank war going on with the Cubs, to listen to Len and Bob allude. Scott Eyre (probably) whacked Dempster with a shaving cream pie during an interview. Now, they suggest, there's a chain reaction going on. Which is great, when you're winning, and the Cubs have been winning enough. They're plus four as April winds down, and that's not bad.

I suppose maybe Canadians get a bad rap. At the time, I thought Trey Parker and Matt Stone were just targeting Americans tendancy to blame someone else -- anyone, relevant or not -- for their problems with their “Blame Canada” bit in the South Park movie. Now I wonder if they weren’t ripping on all the people who make fun of Canada, something of an over-used joke now. Maybe they're geniuses, and they meant it to work on both levels. Well... probably not.

And don’t get an old roommate of mine started on the Canadian music scene. It’s a namechecker's paradise, to his disdain. I forwarded him a review of Metric called Thank Canada for indie-rock the Metric way by fantastic Tribune music critic Greg Kot, and as part of his commentary he wrote back, “It's like you can't talk about one of them without saying something about the others. Just a little pet peave: Te scene is good, it's there/been there, why do you need to keep pointing out every band involved in it when the story is about one of them?” A very valid point, and it goes to show how we group Canadians together in our collective mindset. It's another case of Us and Them. To be honest, I fall into the trap as well, thinking about Broken Social Scene and all the artists and musicians they pull together -- from Metric, the Stars, Feist, plus Jason Collett and even a song featuring a brilliant M.C. based in Toronto who records and performs as K-Os -- which suggests that there's something of a scene afoot up there. And how can you not interpret a band with a scene when the scene is such a big part of the story? Like the Grateful Dead circa 1960 San Francisco, or any number of grunge bands circa 1990 Seattle.

But I digress. And I might have just namechecked. Sorry about that.

When Dempster was first shifted to the closer, I was against it. I was concerned that his style of pitching – mixing up every kind of pitch you can think of – would not be effective when he did not have time to figure out which pitches were working that game. After mulling it around in my mind for a day or two, though, I came around. If he could simplify his approach a bit, he could be just fine.

He has simplified his approach, and he’s been more than just fine. He’s now on a streak of 25 straight saves, a Cubs team record. Not bad, considering they’ve had guys like Mitch Williams and Rod Beck and the man himself, Lee Smith. Even though a record like that one doesn't feel as impressive as a single-season consecutive number, Ryan is 6 for 6 this season, with an ERA at 1.50. (19 is the single season consecutive record, by Tom Gordon and Ryan Dempster, actually, although most of us barely noticed the record at the end of last season, besides which Gagne warped our perception of that record anyway a few years ago.)

Am I the only one thinking, “Finally!” I mean, the Cubs have been dealing with a lot of bad closers. There were three over-the-hill guys, Terry Adams, Rick Aguilera, and even Tom Gordon – all of whom weren’t terrible and were probably even good at stretches, but who nonetheless never felt like the solution. Then there were the cross-your-fingers-and-hope-for-the-best guys: crazy Antonio Alfonseca and Joe Six-Pack Borowski. And of course we can’t forget Hawkins, who still haunts our dreams. (It was just over a year ago he blew that save against the Pirates, the beginning of his inevitable swan song.) There was briefly closer by committee, before that settled at Ryan Dempster. Let’s just say that the Cubs were due for a guy pitching like this in the ninth.

The concern with Dempster has been his walks. So far, though, he's walked three batters in 12 innings. That's it. While the rest of the Cubs pitchers -- save Maddux -- are handing out free tickets to the carousel, Dempster has been in control.

Len and Bob were talking the other day about how Dempster is flying under the radar so to speak, never included in the big time closers category like Brad Lidge and Billy Wagner, etc. Maybe it's a mentality thing. Maybe we want closers to clip 100mph. Or to act like they can, strutting like Mariano Rivera. Dempster does not. He looks nowhere near tough, and if you met him on the street the last thing you would feel is intimidation. All he's doing is saving games at a fantastic rate.

So when do we stop doubting and waiting, and declare the Dempster experiment a success? We have no reason to think that he's going to bomb anymore, do we? Not that he can be as perfect as he's been, but at some point I think we have to stop saying "We'll see" -- the common notion regarding Dempster among the pre-season chatterers -- and embrace what it is we're seeing.

The Cubs are a team with flaws, and such a team needs a reliable closer. Occasionally the Cubs will bumble their way into a ninth inning lead that they may not entirely deserve, and they need those wins. And the games when they do play well, they really need those wins. This is not a team that can afford to give away winnable games very often, because they will lose plenty of games on their own. With Dempster at closer, pitching the way he's been pitching this season, I think we'll see a lot less of those unbearable losses that we have been seeing the last few seasons. Finally.