by Rick Telander, The Chicago Sun-Times , Chicago Sun Times

Sox pitcher John Danks was smoking (no, not Geovany Soto-style smoking), the Sox pounded out 13 hits -- including home runs by Alexei Ramirez and Jermaine Dye -- and the South Side boys did enough little things to drive the Cubs half-crazy with anxiety and frustration.

A metaphor comes to mind: The Cubs are a big, nervous, pedigreed dog snapping its jaws frantically; the Sox are a sly alley cat, claws out, riding the dog's back.

Maybe that's not an entirely fair image, since it's hard, for instance, to call the Sox' 3-4-5 hitters feline. But big dudes Dye, Jim Thome and Paul Konerko have it all over the Cubs' 3-4-5 hitters -- Milton Bradley, Derrek Lee and Jake Fox -- when it comes to production. The Sox' trio has 43 home runs and 123 RBI while the Cubs' group has just 18 homers and 66 RBI.

So do this: Forget Bradley's acknowledged temper and his manager's potty mouth when scolding the outfielder. The simple fact is Bradley's .232 average, five home runs and paltry 16 RBI mean he shouldn't even be playing, let alone having tantrums. The gazillion-dollar switch-hitter is batting a pitiful .195 against right-handed pitchers. And the ability to bat lefty against those righties was the reason he was acquired.

Against Danks, the left-hander, Bradley batted right-handed and -- whee! -- got a walk to go with his infield pop-up and two strikeouts.

A bigger issue is that the Cubs have two high-maintenance, high-strung head cases at their core -- Sunday's starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano being the other -- while the Sox have an all-for-one mentality of near-equals.

A display of this came in the sixth inning, when Sox manager Ozzie Guillen called a suicide squeeze that sent Chris Getz flying toward home plate. The play unnerved Zambrano, who threw wildly to his unsuspecting catcher Soto, with the ball getting away and Getz scoring easily. Big Z then hit DeWayne Wise and walked Scott Podsednik before Piniella could yank him from the game.

How can any team afford to have its alleged batting star and pitching ace be so easily flummoxed?

The Sox have crafty, agile, young players like Ramirez, Getz and Gordon Beckham who seem to have a knack for doing the little things in a fashion that can be maddeningly destructive to foes.

Consider kid Beckham.

Playing at a new position, third base, the rookie from Georgia struggles at times but already has shown amazing Baseball sense.

In the fourth inning, he spanked two near-hits foul down the left-field line, then went with an outside pitch and singled to right.

While on the basepath, Beckham jumped at the last second over Wise's grounder, seemingly forcing Cubs second baseman Andres Blanco to blink and be unable to make a play.

In the sixth, Beckham laid down a sacrifice bunt that allowed Getz to advance to third, from where Getz would eventually steal home, causing Zambrano to melt down.

Thus are games won.

''We are changing,'' Guillen said when I asked him if his club was becoming more like the ''piranhas,'' the nip-you-to-death Minnesota Twins. ''We have to, because Baseball in the next couple of years will be changing from long ball to help-your-people ball.''

No need to mention that the Steroid Era of muscle freaks might be winding down.

If small ball does come to dominate, so will teamwork.

It's like when the Cubs' Ryan Freel came to the plate to lead off the seventh inning, after all the sixth-inning Zambrano nonsense.

''I knew 100 percent I was getting hit,'' the third baseman said. ''I told the ump, 'I guess I'll be wearing it pretty soon.'''

Of course, Freel was hit with the first pitch from Danks. Retaliation is never out of style in any kind of Baseball.

On a gorgeous, sunny day when the wind was gusting all over, making fly balls mini-adventures, when the first drunk I saw getting handcuffed and arrested was wearing a Sox jersey with the name ''BEER'' on the back, it seemed like change was in the air.

The Cubs must change. And the Sox need to keep their changes rolling.

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