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Hendry still holding out hope for season

You had to figure “only the Cubs” when they picked up 5 hits in the seventh inning Friday night at Kansas City and scored only 1 run — on a double-play grounder.

Despite that inefficiency, they still managed to take advantage of what the Royals gave them in the ninth inning, and they managed a 6-4 victory.

An error by former White Sox second baseman Chris Getz helped the Cubs to a 2-run ninth. The tiebreaking run came home on Getz’s error on what looked to be an inning-ending double-play ball off the bat of Kosuke Fukudome.

Starlin Castro then provided an insurance run with his third hit of the night.

The victory snapped a two-game losing streak for the Cubs (31-44), who are well out of the race in the National League Central.

However, general manager Jim Hendry told reporters at Kauffman Stadium that he’s not going to rush into “sell” mode with the July 31 trading deadline still five weeks away.

“It’s no different than what I would have told you a month ago,” Hendry told Chicago writers. “My main objective would be to see how we do by the end of July and also make logical decisions that help the ballclub for next year, too.

“It’s no different than what I would have told you a month ago. My main objective would be to see how we do by the end of July and also make logical decisions that help the ballclub for next year, too.”

Cubs brass will meet next week to discuss the direction of the club for the rest of this season and 2012.

In the coming days, the Cubs will get second baseman Darwin Barney off the disabled list. Barney (knee sprain) will head to Class AAA Iowa on Saturday to begin a rehab. He’ll be followed shortly by center fielder Marlon Byrd (facial fractures).

“It’s not as complicated as people would think,” Hendry told the writers. “You want to get healthy, you want Marlon to come back and Barney and let Mike (Quade) manage the club that looks a little bit more like the club we broke camp with and see how we play for a while.”

Before beating the Royals, the Cubs lost two of three each to the White Sox and the Yankees. Despite that, the feeling around the clubhouse at the end of the Sox series was that the Cubs were playing better baseball even if the wins weren’t coming.

“We were just a little short of seeing a little more light at the end of the tunnel,” Hendry said. “If we would have won one more (against the Sox) and maybe another one against the Yankees, all of a sudden you have a pretty good 10 days. We’re playing a lot better baseball.”

Those are a lot of “ifs,” but everybody seems to be buying in.

“We need to start finding a way to knock the door down,” Quade told Keith Moreland on the WGN radio pregame show. “We’ve been close a lot, but we’ve got to start finding a way to win these games.”

They did that Friday, with a little help from the Royals.

bmiles@dailyherald.com

Cubs beat Royals thanks to close-call bunt in 9th