Piniella takes it easy on his pitchers

It may or may not go down as a pivotal moment in pitcher Sean Gallagher's career, but it was noteworthy nonetheless.

The Cubs were down 3-2 in the bottom of the second inning, and Gallagher had just given up a leadoff double to Alexei Ramirez. Out came manager Lou Piniella for one of his infamous "nice chats."

"You know what?" Piniella said after his team fell 6-5 to the White Sox Saturday at U.S. Cellular Field "The young guy dug in there and did a (heck) of a job, I'll be honest with you. I was proud of him. I went on the mound and told him he had to bury his breaking ball in the dirt, make the hitters swing at it occasionally. He changed the plane on his fastball. Give the guy credit. He went out there and gave us 6 good innings, threw 120 pitches. That's how you become a successful major-league pitcher."

In his own calculated way, Piniella may have been sending some positive message to his team amid a tough time.

The Cubs have dropped three in a row and four of five and are banged up physically. Piniella's positive-mental-attitude approach started with Gallagher and ended with relief pitcher Carlos Marmol, who gave up a homer to Carlos Quentin in the seventh that broke a 5-5 tie.

First Gallagher.

The 22-year-old righty threw 31 pitches in the first inning on a day when the Cubs desperately needed some innings out of their starter.

After Piniella's visit, Gallagher gave up a run that inning but gutted out 6 innings, throwing 121 pitches while allowing up 8 hits and 5 runs. Gallagher corroborated Piniella's version of the visit.

"Can I bury a slider one time, at least, especially in the counts I was getting," he said. "I was getting a lot of 0-2 counts. I was getting sliders up, and they were putting the barrel on it and getting good hits.

"I'm just going to take it as another step forward because I was able to battle through it and keep my team in the game as long as I could. I made the adjustments later on to be able to stay in the game. It's very big learning experience. He came out there and basically was trying to get me motivated. He tried to light a fire under my butt and get me a little angry, and it worked out pretty well."

Marmol has been beleaguered lately, but he was coming off 2 scoreless appearances against the Orioles. Quentin hit an 0-2 pitch up and away to the opposite field in right for a home run. Marmol walked Jermaine Dye but worked out of trouble.

"I tip my hat," said Marmol. "I feel better. You can see. You can tell. I'm throwing strikes. I'm feeling good right now... One pitch... What do you want me to say? I've been struggling from weeks ago. I'm back."

Piniella denied being worried about Marmol or anybody else on his club.

"I'm not worried about anything," he said. "Our guys played hard, and we just fell a little short, and I'm proud of them. Outside of that, give the White Sox credit today. They played a good game.

"Why should I be (worried)?. Everybody is prone to have a time that they're going to struggle, whether it's a hitter, whether it's a pitcher, whether it's a relief pitcher. Nobody's perfect."