Good start, bad finish for Cubs
Progress has been measured in bits and pieces and in individual highlights for the Cubs this season.
In the win-loss column, it’s gotten better lately, but there still have been steps backward for every step forward.
Such was the case Wednesday night as the Cubs came home and fell 9-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies at Wrigley Field.
The loss was the Cubs’ second in a row, dropping them to 15-22.
One of those good individual performers, starter Matt Garza, pitched well but could not get a victory as he lasted 6<sup>2</sup>⁄<sub>3</sub> innings.
The back end of the bullpen again proved to be a trouble spot. Shawn Camp, who has been reliable most of the way, gave up a tiebreaking homer to Carlos Ruiz in the eighth to give the Phillies a 3-2 lead.
It all came crashing down in the ninth, with the Phillies scoring 6 runs off Scott Maine and Michael Bowden, who gave up a pinch grand slam to Hector Luna.
Alfonso Soriano hit his second homer in two days. If he can keep up the power surge, he can join a couple of the other offensive bright spots for the Cubs: first baseman Bryan LaHair and center fielder Tony Campana. Both of those players earned praise from manager Dale Sveum.
“Obviously, LaHair’s doing his thing as well as anybody in the league,” Sveum said. “He’s really come into his own, to have whatever he has, 65 home runs since the opening day of last season, whether it was Triple-A, Venezuela or here now. Those are pretty prolific numbers right there.
“Campana has sparked us a lot since he’s been here. There’s no doubt that the reason we scored a little bit more runs is because of him at the top of the order.”
Before the game, I wandered over to the Phillies’ dugout to listen in on manager Charlie Manuel’s pregame media confab. The Cubs and the Phillies split a four-game series at Citizens Bank Park at the end of April, and I asked Manuel his impressions of the Cubs.
Note that Manuel has had problems of his own. The Phillies got back to .500 at 19-19 with Wednesday’s victory.
Not surprisingly, he echoed some of what Sveum said.
“They’re young, and give credit to the first baseman,” Manuel said of LaHair. “He’s shown he can hit. The shortstop (Starlin Castro) is real good. They have some good players. Their starting pitching looks to me like they hold people. They’re coming.”
Soriano hurt the Phillies in the fourth, with a line-drive, 2-run homer to the left-field bleachers to put the Cubs ahead 2-1. The Phillies tied the game in the next half-inning.
Sveum lifted Garza with two outs in the seventh, and James Russell did the job again by working out of trouble.
“When you throw 100 pitches, 107 pitches, before (the end) of the seventh, it’s not a tough decision for the skip,” said Garza, making his second start after coming off an illness.
“I’m going to finish out the seventh, eighth and ninth like I used to. I’m not too worried about it. Twelve days off, it was a pain. It wasn’t like it was a vacation. Twelve days off, fighting … I don’t know what the heck it was.”
bmiles@dailyherald.com