Matt Garza is probably our best pitcher. Starlin Castro is our best player (and he only turned 22 last month; mind-boggling). But probably the most exciting player on the Cubs right now is just 5’ 8” and weighs 165 pounds: Tony Campana.
I don’t know how much the Cubs ever expected out of Tony. When he came up to the Cubs last year, he had to first be put on the 40-man roster. And this year he didn’t make the major league roster out of spring training. But when Marlon Byrd was traded to the Red Sox, Tony came up. And he has been awesome – and so much fun to watch. I was at Wrigley Field last weekend and last Monday night. When Tony got on base, he was a constant distraction to the pitcher. The other team knew he was going to steal and they knew he was going to be safe, but they still had to try to stop him, which meant they couldn’t be giving their total concentration to the batter. It was great.
And he doesn’t just affect the other team’s pitchers. He affects their fielders, too. Infielders know they have to field the ball cleanly and throw quickly in order to get Tony, and the fact that they know that can make them bobble the ball just a little, and that is enough for Tony to beat it out. Also, infielders have to play in a couple of steps when Tony is batting because they have to get to the ball quickly if they are going to throw him out. If they stay back, he could be safe. Having the other team’s infielders playing in a couple of steps opens up bigger holes in the infield for more hits to get through. (That’s just geometry.)
Consider yesterday’s win over the Phillies. I had some things to do, so I wasn’t able to watch the game on TV. But it was great just listening to the radio with Tony on base. In the third inning, Campana singled. The pitcher was so worried about Tony stealing that he mis-threw a pickoff throw to first and Tony went to second. Darwin Barney moved him over to third. When Starlin Castro hit a fly ball to shallow-to-medium right field, nobody else in the league would have tried to score, especially with Hunter Pence, who has had the most assists of any National League outfielder over the last four years, in the right field. But Tony tried, and he was safe even though Pence threw a one-bounce strike to the catcher.
In the eighth inning, Tony singled on a soft ground ball to the second baseman. He promptly stole second and was sacrificed to third by Darwin Barney. With the Cubs already ahead 3 to 0, the Phillies played the infield in. Starlin Castro hit a ground ball to second, but Campana was going on contact and he scored – again. I didn’t see it, but it sure was fun to listen to.
Without those two runs, Cubs would have only been up by three, instead of five, when Carlos Marmol came in in the bottom of the ninth. Who knows what would have happened if we had only had a three-run lead, since Marmol gave up a single and three walks, including walking in a run, before finally getting the third out.
Here’s what two Cubs said about Campana after Sunday’s game:
“‘We scored two runs on just flat out speed, that's all it was [said Cubs manager Dale Sveum]. Anybody else you don't even think about sending him on that [shallow] a fly ball, but a guy like that you send him on just about anything that's not on the infield dirt.’
Said [Cubs starting pitcher Matt] Garza: ‘He's just too quick. If I was facing him, it would be a pain in the butt. You want him to hit the ball hard. He's one of the few where you want him to hit the ball hard. You want him to get it up in the air. Because if he hits it on the ground, nine out of 10 times he's going to be safe. It's awesome for us, for the other guys it's a pain.pain.’”
Tony has gotten on base five times in the first three games of the series against the Phillies and he has scored each. As Paul Sullivan said in the Tribune this morning, the Cubs are playing a variation of small ball: “Campy Ball”.
Tony Campana: Fun to watch and, right now, maybe the Cubs most exciting player.
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