Wood bests Santana as Cubs halt 4-game skid
Travis Wood didn’t slay a Giant, but he has faced several giants this year with the Cubs.
In Monday night’s 6-1 victory over the New York Mets, Wood bested former Cy Young winner Johan Santana by pitching 7 shutout innings and running his record to 2-3 with a 3.54 ERA.
Just this month, Wood has gone up against three other former Cy Young winners: losing to the Giants’ Barry Zito and the Tigers’ Justin Verlander and beating the White Sox’ Jake Peavy.
Wood said he doesn’t look at who is pitching against him.
“I try to say it doesn’t (matter), because you always want to try to bring your ‘A’ game every time,” he said. “But when you’re going against guys like Johan, you know you have to bring it.”
Wood brought it and then some. He had good life on his pitches, walking one and striking out six.
“That was impressive,” said manager Dale Sveum, whose team snapped a four-game losing streak to improve to 25-48. “That was about as good as it can get. The life on his fastball was about as good as we’ve all seen it. He was beating guys that are good fastball hitters.”
Joe Mather’s 2-run homer in the fourth gave Wood a 2-0 lead, and the Mets helped with 3 errors in the Cubs’ 4-run seventh. Mather’s homer, his fourth, was a line drive to left-center against a stiff wind on a cool night.
“In B.P. (batting practice), there wasn’t a whole lot of home runs,” Mather said. “We were talking about it earlier, if your get it up, you better run because the only shot is it falling and try to get double. I was lucky to get a pitch up and put the right trajectory on it.”
Byrd banned: Former Cub Marlon Byrd has been suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball for testing positive for a banned substance, Tamoxifen, a performance enhancer. The Cubs traded Byrd to the Red Sox in April, and he subsequently was designated for assignment by Boston. #147;I#146;m surprised, and I feel bad for him because he was a great teammate when he played with us,#148; said left fielder Alfonso Soriano. #147;When you hear some names with drug tests, no matter who that guy is, if he#146;s a bad or good teammate, it#146;s bad because he#146;s part of the family.#147;Sometimes with those drug tests, it#146;s better if you#146;re not taking anything because now, sometimes you can take something from GNC and think you#146;re safe.#148;Injury updates: Pitcher Ryan Dempster threw off flat ground Monday, according to Dale Sveum, who said the session went well.Dempster has been on the disabled list since June 18, retroactive to June 16, because of soreness in his right lat muscle. It#146;s possible Dempster could return to the rotation late next week. Third baseman Ian Stewart has begun hitting. He has been on the DL since June 14 (retro to June 13) because of soreness in his left wrist. This and that: The Cubs have optioned infielder Adrian Cardenas to Class AAA Iowa to make room for Tuesday#146;s arrival of first baseman Anthony Rizzo ... Former Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood, who retired last month, was a pregame visitor. He chatted with former teammates around the batting cage.