On Thursday, the Chicago Cubs offense dragged itself from the grave to score four runs on back-to-back home runs from Derrek Lee and Geovany Soto against their crosstown rival White Sox and eventually won on a walk-off single in the ninth inning.
On Friday, the offense took six innings off again, only to rally back from what started as a 7-0 deficit to the visiting Cleveland Indians. The Cubs scored four runs in the eighth inning before, in a moment of poetic injustice, longtime Cubs hero Kerry Wood was taken out of the yard by Lee to tie the game in the ninth inning.
Lee, who has struggled since injuring his wrist in 2005, has shown signs of life during the recent offensive woes from the rest of the Cubs lineup. He is now riding a 16-game hitting streak, and has three home runs in the last two dramatic days.
In the absense of third baseman Aramis Ramirez, the Cubs have been searching for a force in the middle of their batting order. Milton Bradley has appeared ready to fog a mirror the first time this year, and Soto has found a little pop in his bat again.
But it's been Lee who has put the North Siders on his back for the last couple weeks and tried, as hard as it is being six feet five inches tall in an infield full of smurfs, to not stand out.
The part of the headlines and box scores that escapes the casual fan is that it's been Alfonso Soriano and Ryan Theriot with the game-winning hits the last two days. And it was Soto that tied the game on Thursday. Lee, however, has been the man keeping the Cubs in games.
He has raised his batting average to a respectable .285 and now has 10 home runs on the season. And while the fact that the Cubs' RBI leader on June 19 has 33 might seem awkward, Lee has been something special: perhaps the only person on the Cubs roster that deserves to be in St. Louis for the All Star Game.
To put it in context, the team is collectively batting .245 (27th in baseball) and has scored only 260 runs to date (also 27th and 33 below the National League average).
A resurgence from Lee is huge to any hopes the Cubs have to compete this season. Ramirez was the rock of the order last year, and the loss of Mark DeRosa hasn't been compensated for yet this year.
It's going to have to be Lee, the veteran leader of the offense, that drags the rest of the order with him. As long as the sale of the team has questions, it appears General Manager Jim Hendry is going to be tied to the proximity of the current payroll.
Of course, the current payroll is a grave Hendry dug for himself; paying two failing right fielders the amount the Cubs are keeps Hendry from being able to add another pitcher with any kind of a salary by the July trade deadline.
If the Cubs have any chances in a competitive, talented National League Central, Lee is going to have to be the man in the lineup. He has finally shown a spark to his game at the plate over the last two weeks. Here's hoping it can continue.
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