LITTLE HELPERS
Little Leaguers offer Cubs tips about how to win on the road
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Cubs manager Joe Maddon threw out the first pitch Sunday before another afternoon of games at the Little League World Series.
He put the ball in the dirt. Then he took two more shots at it without coming any closer to the strike zone.
‘‘With an inappropriate warmup, I was trying not to suck,’’ he joked.
Fortunately, that was all the bad the Cubs had in them on the final day of another painful road trip. They bashed the Pirates 7-1 in the MLB Little League Classic before a crowd of 2,503, hundreds of them young ballplayers, at Bowman Field.
It was the rubber match of a three-game series and — yes, we finally can say it — their first victorious road series against a division opponent all season. It was their first winning road series anywhere since May 17-19 in Washington.
Being around a bunch of baseball-mad kids all day — from the early airport arrival to time in the stands at the LLWS complex to the game at Bowman — helped get rid of the dark cloud that has been following the Cubs whenever they leave Wrigley Field.
‘‘It put a smile on everybody’s faces,’’ Cubs president Theo Epstein said. ‘‘Hopefully that carries over and we start to play with a little bit of joy and remember it’s a game — all that good stuff that helps you always, especially during a time when things aren’t going that great.’’
The Cubs, who are in a virtual first-place tie with the Cardinals in the National League Central, head home for six games against the Giants and Nationals. Then it’s back on the road. There are 17 regular-season games in unfriendly confines remaining.
Will it be more of the same madness for a team that entered play Sunday with the second-best home record in the NL and the secondworst road record?
‘‘It’s almost inexplicable why we’re so disparate,’’ Maddon said. Or is it?
‘‘It’s because at their home stadium, they, like, know all the bounces and stuff and, like, they have the crowd cheering for them,’’ posited 10-year-old Little Leaguer Evan Fitzpatrick of Batavia, New York. ‘‘When they’re away, they usually have the crowd cheering against them.’’
Fitzpatrick and teammates plowed through a plate of hot wings at the Mountaineer Lodge as they pondered what the Cubs can do about it all.
‘‘I think they need to just act like the road stadiums are just their stadium and, like, try to just act like it’s Chicago and try to do the same thing they do at their house,’’ 10-year-old Chase Antinore said.
Fitzpatrick dared to take it a step further.
‘‘Only pitch one guy,’’ he said. ‘‘Just burn his arm for the season. I feel like you’ve got to pitch more Yu Darvish. Also, they’re going to need Kris Bryant to start to hit, like, really, really good again.’’
Back at the LLWS complex, 11-year-old Colton Hicks, a member of the Southeast squad from Loudoun South Little League in Virginia, got to meet and take a selfie with Bryant. The Cubs star wished Hicks and his teammates luck.
‘‘It was amazing because I’m a huge fan of Kris Bryant,’’ Hicks said.
Hicks’ father, Chad, who is one of Loudoun’s coaches, offered his advice to the Cubs.
‘‘I would say take a page out of what we try to do this year: pound the strike zone and allow our defense to work for the pitcher,’’ Hicks, 46, said. ‘‘We don’t try to overpitch and strike guys out. What we do is throw strikes and keep pitch counts low, let our defense work for us and then get timely hits. And that’s a formula that has worked for us all season.’’
Might it be crazy enough to work for the Cubs?
The game Sunday went a lot like Loudoun’s magical month has. Starting pitcher Jose Quintana pitched seven scoreless innings, striking out seven, walking none and throwing only 92 pitches. His defense, save for an early error by Bryant, was rock-solid behind him.
Home runs by Nick Castellanos, Jason Heyward and Anthony Rizzo certainly were timely enough.
But it was just a start. The road shall beckon again soon.