Carlos Silva stays silent after fight, Cubs manager does all the talking

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Carlos Silva sweats out a six-run first inning against the Brewers on Wednesday that eventually resulted in a confrontation with Aramis Ramirez.| Morry Gash~AP

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Updated: June 4, 2011 4:47AM

MESA, Ariz. — Barely eight months ago, Carlos Silva stood in the visitors clubhouse at U.S. Cellular Field and stood up for his new team even as it might have pained him to do so at the expense of fully supporting his best friend on the team, Carlos Zambrano.

‘‘Carlos is a very good friend of mine, but this is my team, too,’’ Silva said the day after Zambrano was suspended for the dugout tirade that culminated in a shouting match with teammate Derrek Lee.

‘‘If I’m going to have good success and have a good year,’’ Silva said, ‘‘I need to give my support to my team. That’s what I’m doing right now. We are a team, and we stick together.’’

Fast forward to Thursday — the day after Silva’s own dugout altercation with teammate Aramis Ramirez — and Silva had this to say:

(Insert faint sound of crickets here.)

For the second straight day, Silva refused repeated requests for public comment on the scuffle he appeared to provoke by angrily complaining about sloppy fielding as he came off the field following a six-run first inning Wednesday against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Maybe the three errors pushed him over the top. Maybe it was the two home runs he gave up. Maybe it’s that he knows he has to compete for a starting job in camp this spring, which he has called ‘‘ridiculous.’’

Maybe it was just easier to ‘‘stick together’’ and be publicly supportive when he was 8-2 with a 3.01 ERA and being mentioned as a possible All-Star.

Maybe he’ll decide to take a few minutes today and let us know.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Cubs seem determined to move on, forget Wednesday and regroup after a sloppy start to their spring schedule. It’s not like they haven’t been though this drill before.

‘‘Experience is a good thing,’’ veteran pitcher Ryan Dempster said. ‘‘We’ll be fine.

‘‘They’re both grown men. What people don’t understand, man — you fight with your wife, too; you fight with your brothers. It happens. Especially when you’re grownups, and you’ve been around a while, you find ways to get through that kind of stuff. Those guys will do that.’’

Manager Mike Quade held a meeting before morning practice in which he did all the talking — addressing the scuffle as well as the sloppiness of mental lapses and 14 errors in four games.

‘‘We want to make damn sure that people are committed to the work that they’re doing,’’ said Quade, who admittedly faced his first major test as a first-year big-league manager with the Silva-Ramirez blowup.

‘‘Sometimes a little revolt’s not bad,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m glad people were pissed off. But we need to channel that anger at the opposition and within ourselves. We put it to bed — as far as I’m concerned we did — and we move on.’’

Quade said he didn’t talk to the pair separately from the team because he expects them to resolve their own issues.

‘‘I don’t need to see a handshake,’’ he said. ‘‘They need to get along as teammates the best they can, and put this behind them. Whether it’s an acknowledgment, whether it’s a conversation, whether it’s a handshake, I count on them to get that done.’’

Beyond that, nothing with Silva changes — no team discipline, no change in his pitching schedule or status.

But if you thought he was expendable after an injury-hampered and ineffective second half last year (1-3, 11.12, 111/3 innings), it’s certainly not difficult after this to picture an Opening Day roster without him if he doesn’t have an especially impressive spring.

He has one year at $11.5 million (plus a $2 million buyout on a 2012 option) left on his contract. And his 9-2 first half alone last year already would seem to make the Cubs the winners in the Silva-for-Milton Bradley trade.

But for now, nobody’s going there.

And some teammates would seem to feel for Silva.

Certainly, Zambrano would, having been through some of the ordeals he has during his Cub career.

‘‘I can’t have a comment on that. I wasn’t there,’’ Zambrano said when asked about sympathy for his friend. ‘‘So, next question.’’

Of course, whether he was there is irrelevant.

‘‘Next question,’’ he repeated.

At least the Cubs seemed to respond to Thursday’s meeting with better overall play against the Texas Rangers — something Quade said pleased him.

‘‘Crazy things can happen early in camp,’’ he said. ‘‘This is a little bit more than I bargained for, but it’s OK.’’