Mike Celizic

A no-hitter is a great individual achievement. Throw one and no matter what else happens in your life, it’s yours forever. But no-hitters in September or April or any other spring or summer month don’t win championships.

Chicago Cubs fans are no doubt thinking of that right now, as the enigmatic Carlos Zambrano celebrates his gem against the Astros.  He had been nursing a strained rotator cuff and hadn’t started since Sept. 7. The Cubs had been hoping for six or seven good innings and no pain afterwards. Instead, they got a 5-0 entry in the record books.

That’s great for him. But for the Cubs, it’s just one win; a much-needed win and one that takes them farther away from the fading Brewers and closer to the NL Central title and home-field advantage through the league playoffs. But it’s still just one win.

And what the Cubs need is more than one win from their big right-hander. They need consistency. They need a man they can rely on to go out and shut down opponents not just down the stretch, but in October, when it really matters.

Zambrano has pitched in three postseason series; two in 2003 and one last year. He’s 0-1 in four starts, and his team is 1-2 in the three series. He pitched well last year against the Diamond Backs in the NLDS, giving up just one run in six innings in his one start. But it wasn’t good enough. The Cubs were one-and-done last year.

As good as Zambrano can be is matched by how awful he can be. He gave up four home runs in one game little more than six weeks ago. He’s been pounded for eight runs in less than two innings, and seven or more runs in one outing an alarming number of times.

A no-hitter is a great feat, but it’s not the mark of a great pitcher. No one better epitomized that than Don Larsen, author of the only perfect game in World Series history.

When Larsen beat the Dodgers in 1956 for the Yankees, a writer sat stunned in the press box, his brain totally locked up, unable to write a single sentence about what he had just witnessed. Dick Young, the late great New York sports columnist, leaned over his colleague's shoulder and typed out the opening sentence: “The imperfect man pitched a perfect game.” The other guy took it from there and ended up with a prize-winning game story.

It was a little inaccurate to say that. Every no-hitter and perfect game ever thrown has been by an imperfect man. That’s the only kind of man there is: Just ask any woman. But Larsen, who had more than his share of personal demons, was less perfect that most. Everybody who read the story knew exactly what it meant.

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You could say similar things about Zambrano. He’s no Larsen in the imperfection department, but he’s no Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson, either. Those men went about their work with fierce determination and never complained. They played hurt and never cared about no stinking pitch count.

Zambrano can’t seem to play without complaining. There was the fight last year in the dugout with his catcher, Michael Barrett. There was the whining about his contract. And there are the unending excuses every time he gets lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve – his arm hurt; he went over his pitch count; somebody coughed in section 104, row QQ.

But none of those things really matter on the field. There, what’s driven his manager, Lou Piniella, nuts – not that it takes a lot to push Sweet Lou off the deep end – is his inconsistency.

Managers don’t care about your best games. They care about your average game. They want to know when they write your name in the lineup, you’re going to be there for the team.

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And nobody ever knows with Zambrano. Get to him a little and depending on how he’s feeling, you can get to him for a lot. He can get down on himself, down on the team, down on life.

He’s on top of the world right now, and there’s no telling what the carryover is going to be. He could use it as a springboard to a string of great starts. He could get so caught up in the wonderfulness of himself, he forgets he needs to perform at a high level again the next time out.

The Cubs don’t need that uncertainty; no team does. They need to know that he’ll be there in October, when they need an ace. You say, “Wait til next year,” 100 times, it starts to get old. You hear, “My arm was sore,” a dozen times, that gets old, too.

The no-hitter was great. But if Zambrano doesn’t pitch consistently, it’s worthless to the Cubs. The team knows that. The fans know that. The question is, does he know it?

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