Astros clean up on Cubs again
Swept away.
Certainly this series.
For all intents and purposes this homestand.
And is it too early to say this season? The way things are going for the Cubs, no.
The last-place Houston Astros got out the brooms Wednesday and swept the Cubs into the dustbin with a 3-1 victory at Wrigley Field.
On a homestand where the Cubs were supposed to make hay, they wound up 3-6 against the teams they were “supposed to beat” in the Mets, Pirates and Astros.
That brought the Cubs’ home record to an ignominious 12-19 and actually had them looking forward to a meat-grinder road trip to St. Louis, Cincinnati and Philadelphia.
“It’s always disappointing to lose,” said manager Mike Quade, whose team is 23-31 for the season. “I try to keep things in perspective. We had an opportunity last night and we didn’t get that done. We didn’t score any runs today. Some of the give and take bothers me some. As much as it is good to be at home, no matter where you are, you need to play good baseball, and we need to be focused on that.
“We’ve got a ways to go to start doing that, but it doesn’t mean it can’t happen on the road.”
The day was a gorgeous one, with a 78-degree game-time temperature and a wind blowing straight out. Even Cubs owner Tom Ricketts stopped by ever so briefly to chat with reporters before the game.
When a colleague asked what’s wrong with the Cubs, Ricketts answered: “Nothing. Just a lot of injuries. We’ll be fine.”
Well, he got one out of three right. The Cubs do have a lot of injuries, with the latest being third baseman Aramis Ramirez, who got hit in the mouth diving for a groundball in the seventh inning and had to get stitches.
As far as the rest of it, the Cubs aren’t so fine.
They wasted a nice pitching performance from veteran lefty Doug Davis, who may have kept his spot in the rotation even after Matt Garza comes back next week.
Davis gave the Cubs their second straight quality start. The previous night, closer Carlos Marmol wasted Carlos Zambrano’s quality effort. On Wednesday, the offense once again could not take advantage of the conditions, as the Cubs were out hit 11-3.
“I had control of my pitches, able to expand when I wanted to expand, and when you do that, no matter what team you’re facing, I think you can be successful,”Davis said. “If you can execute a plan, you can give your team a chance to win, and I was able to do that today.”
Davis worked into the seventh inning of a 1-1 game, but after two of the three batters he faced got hits, Quade turned to relievers Kerry Wood (walk and strikeout) and Sean Marshall, who gave up a 2-run single to Michael Bourn.
That was that, as the Cubs failed to record a hit over the final four innings of the game. Their only run came in the first, when Kosuke Fukudome went deep leading off for his second homer of the year.
Speaking of deep, we’ll leave with some deep thoughts from first baseman Carlos Pena on the plight of the Cubs.
“Obviously, things haven’t gone well for us,” Pena said. “That’s no secret. At the same time, we can’t look at the reality. We can’t look at what’s going on around us and pretty much let that take over. We have to find some inner strength and kind of paint ourselves the best picture that we can so we can come out here 100 percent. You basically make peace with what’s going on, make the adjustment, and then we try to motivate ourselves every single day and try and get that ‘W.’”