Ryan Dempster, Please Don't Make This Difficult

Yeah, so it didn’t take me long to revert back to sports blogging. So sue me.

Anyhoo …

Today’s rant is about Ryan Dempster and his charge that Cubs fans have an attitude problem. He levied this allegation after an 8-7, 11-inning home win over the Giants, who were 39-54 going into the game.

Quick recap: Rich Harden pitched 5 1/3 innings of shutout ball in his first Cubs start; the Cubs led 7-0 going into the 8th and 7-2 going into the 9th; Carlos Marmol gave up 5 runs in the ninth; the Cubs finally snatched it out of the fire in the bottom of the 11th.

“Instead of the headline being 'Reed Johnson drives in game-winning run,' it was 'Marmol ruins Harden debut,' " Dempster said in a Chicago Tribune article. “That's the kind of the attitude in Chicago, and I think it gets put on the players a lot.”

I ran out of fingers trying to count the ways that this statement is wrong:

-- That’s not an attitude. By any objective measure, Marmol’s collapse was the story of the game.

-- Even if it were an attitude, it’s one that Dempster seemed to pick up from the news media, so he shouldn’t hold the fans accountable, even if they happen to agree, which they should.

-- If there’s an attitude problem in Cubs Nation, and there is, it’s that we’ve been far too forgiving for far too long.

-- Championship teams don’t blow 7-run leads late at home to sub-.500 opponents. This is a championship-caliber team. I’m not going to apologize for expecting them to play like one.

-- If players can’t handle fans getting miffed at teams that blow 7-run leads late at home, then players shouldn’t blow 7-run leads late at home. Problem solved.

OK, so I counted on Mordecai Brown's fingers instead of my own. That's beside the point.

Part of why I'm so irate is that there’s something more going on here. The Cubs have an annoying tendency to momentarily stop playing well after something goes wrong -- as evidenced by the Cubs’ lackluster 4-2 loss (Dempster’s first at Wrigley this year, BTW) the very next day. So far it hasn’t really hurt them, but in a 7-game series against a good team you can’t afford to have a couple off nights.

That said, I like Ryan Dempster. Heck, I like Carlos Marmol and I especially like Reed Johnson, who’s given the team everything he has in a supporting role. But Dempster in particular is a key to the Cubs’ success. He’s having a career year, and if the Cubs do anything in the post-season they will need him to pitch as well in October as he has so far this year. That means he can’t be sidetracked by tiffs with the fans and wacky World Series predictions. Ryan Dempster needs to sit down, shut up, stand up, and let his arm do his talking for him.