By Jim Coffman
The teams are alright.
The local squads swept the weekend, going 7-0. Can’t you just hear good old Mel Allen (the longtime, velvet-voiced host of This Week in Baseball) saying “How ’bout that?”
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And Chicago didn’t just win on field, floor and ice, it dominated . . . starting with . . . the Blackhawks. They caught a huge break with a dubious penalty shot call with less than 30 seconds remaining against the Red Wings in Saturday’s opener of a two-game, two-day, regular season-ending series with the Red Wings. And Dustin Byfuglien took advantage, breaking a 2-2 tie. An empty-netter made the final 4-2.
Then on Sunday, Byfuglien led the way again, doing his best Marty Havlat impersonation as he controlled the puck deep into the zone on the right side, behind the net, back out toward the blue line and into the high slot before sliding a perfect pass to a pinching Brent Seabrook. Seabrook then slipped another perfect pass into the middle, where Andrew Ladd one-timed it into the net to give the Blackhawks an early lead. They cruised from there, eventually winning 3-0 and taking plenty of momentum into Thursday’s playoff opener. That’s right, Thursday! At 7:30 at the UC against Calgary! Make your plans now!
Nikolai Khabibulin made 37 saves for the shutout and he could not possibly be better primed for the playoffs. Coach Joel Quenneville made the decision with about a dozen games left in the regular season to ride Khabibulin (after he and Cristobal Huet had alternated between the pipes for much of the season). The veteran netminder started about 10 of those games and it was clear in the final couple weeks that he has recaptured the magic he has displayed before during long runs of post-season success. Detroit (and the Hawks for that matter) didn’t officially have anything to play for over the weekend (both teams had already clinched their playoff positioning). Still, those were many of Detriot’s finest peppering the Hawk goal with shots on Sunday and Khabibulin was the Bulin Wall.
.500!
The Bulls followed their recent script during a Saturday victory over the Charlotte Bobcats, who had been knocked out of playoff contention (ensuring that the Bulls would qualify) with their previous loss. In so doing they pulled themselves up to 40-40, revisiting the good old .500 mark for the first time since before Thanksgiving.
Very little defense was played as the teams went back and forth through the first three-plus quarters. Actually, the Bobcats stretched out a lead with some legs five-plus minutes after halftime. But as has been their MO of late, especially at home, the Bulls cranked up the offense down the stretch and pulled out a both-teams-over-100 scorefest win.
Ben Gordon almost always excels in those sorts of games and sure enough he scored 39 on Saturday. The one drawback with Gordon is you always have to hope he’s hitting three’s (and he was 7-of-12 from beyond the arc against the Bobcats), because his foe so often drops in two at the other end. But Gordon combined with John Salmons (a couple huge late trifectas on his way to 19 points) to overwhelm Charlotte.
The Bulls not only have a shot at clinching at least the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs against Detroit tonight, they also could put themselves a half-game in front of Philly in the race for No. 6. Philly lost its fifth in a row on Sunday to fall into a tie with the Bulls. Unless Chicago suddenly starts to dial up the defense, it is hard to imagine this squad winning a playoff series. But a match-up against banged up Orlando in particular would have some serious possibilities.
Sox Steady
Strong starting pitching can make it all better in a hurry. The White Sox struggled mightily in their first four games but then Bart Colon and Mark Buehrle took turns shutting down the Twinkies. Voila! Back to break-even after Ron Gardenhire’s piranhas threatened to put the Sox in a deep hole with a blowout victory Friday that ran the South Siders’ record to 1-3. So now the Sox take a little bit of momentum into the 10-game road swing that starts tonight. A little. Most importantly, all five starters have already pitched well with the season barely a week old.
Cubs Chatter
I’m glad the Cubs are 4-2 and I’m glad their record is so good with Alfonso Soriano in the leadoff spot the past several years, but I’m going to have to start rooting for a losing streak if Derrek Lee doesn’t start hitting. It could not possibly be more obvious that the top of the lineup should read Ryan Theriot, Mike Fontenot and Soriano. But manager Lou won’t make that kind of change unless the Cubs start losing.
Maybe Lee will get it going soon. He fought off a couple tough pitches and drove a deep fly to right to drive in a big insurance run in his last at-bat Sunday. Only Soriano and Theriot are really hitting so far for the Cubs and yet they were ninth- and 10th-inning rallies away from opening the season 6-0.
Such a smart move by Piniella to go with Reed Johnson as a replacement for Milt Bradley after Bradley strained his groin early on Sunday. The manager went with defense first and sure enough Johnson rewarded him with perhaps the play of the season so far in the majors when he scaled the wall, reached over the top and brought back Prince Fielder’s bid for a game-tying grand slam.
All this winning and Jay Cutler too . . our Cup runneth way over.
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Jim Coffman brings you the city’s best weekend sports roundup every Monday. He awaits your comments.
Posted on April 13, 2009