Daryle Ward was so sure he would play in the majors that he practiced his signature as a kid. He may get a few autograph requests after his latest big hit.
Ward delivered a pinch-hit, two-run double in the eighth inning, and the Cubs rallied again to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-4 Sunday after the anticipated showdown between Carlos Zambrano and Randy Johnson got wiped out.
"I love the game of baseball," Ward said. "It’s something I knew that I was going to do when I was about 3 years old."
Carlos Marmol (1-0) struck out two in a perfect eighth and Kerry Wood pitched the ninth to earn his seventh save in 10 chances and finish off Chicago’s three-game sweep of the NL West leaders.
Heavy rain and temperatures in the mid-40s delayed the start of the game by 58 minutes, and Zambrano and Johnson were spectators when it finally began. By the time the game ended, the Cubs had used another late rally to beat Arizona, the team that swept them in the playoffs last year.
Reed Johnson tied it at 4 with a two-run homer off Juan Cruz with one out in the seventh after Mike Fontenot walked. Cruz then walked Ryan Theriot before Tony Pena (0-1) got Derrek Lee to hit into a double play, but the Cubs struck again in the eighth.
Pena intentionally walked pinch-hitter Alfonso Soriano to load the bases with one out and set the stage for Ward, who drove the ball to right-center to make it 6-4.
"Well, I’m not going to let Soriano beat us right there," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. "We’ve got to have a chance for a double-play ball and we’ve got (Ward) hitting (.174) up there. That’s really not that tough of a decision."
Ward also tied it with a pinch-hit RBI single in Chicago’s 7-2 victory over Arizona on Saturday.
Most days, Ward follows a heavy regimen of stretches and massages in case he gets called.
"Sometimes, you’re a little bit lazy and say, ‘I don’t want to do it,"’ said Ward, third among active players with 74 pinch hits. "But you have to. I feel like I’m making a good example for some of the younger guys that are playing on the bench. They do some of the same things I do, and it’s been working for all of us."
It’s a lot of effort for about a minute of activity.
"Was it even a minute?" he asked on Sunday.
No one was sure, exactly. They just knew his timing was perfect, as was Reed Johnson’s.
Stuck in a 4-for-34 slump over the previous 11 games, he drove his first homer through a driving wind about halfway up the bleachers.
"The last week or so, we really haven’t been playing that well so I think this was a good confidence boost," said Johnson, signed to a one-year deal in late March after Toronto released him.
Arizona‘s Edgar Gonzalez was in line to get the win until Johnson.
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