'Lackluster' loss to Reds leaves Cubs 8-6

Cubs manager Lou Piniella doesn't always get the words right, but his wordsmith skills were on the mark Thursday following a 7-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field.

"Look, we've played two games with throwing the ball away, we haven't hit when we have had opportunities with men on base," said Piniella, whose Cubs fell to 8-6 after dropping the final two games of this series. "It's been two very, what you would term, 'lackluster' games."

The term "lackluster," works, as does "sloppy" when it comes to the defense and "sleepy" when it comes to offense.

The Cubs got 7 innings out of starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano, but some errant fielding didn't help. It also didn't help that the only run the Cubs scored off Reds starting pitcher Aaron Harang was an unearned one in the sixth inning.

"It' wasn't a pretty baseball game, not from our point of view anyway," Piniella said.

The Reds' Chris Dickerson opened the fourth with a triple that hit off the wall in right field as Micah Hoffpauir went back on it. Dickerson later scored. With the Reds up 2-1 in the seventh, they got 2 more, when Alex Gonzalez singled to score Brandon Phillips, with Ramon Hernandez coming home when Hoffpauir committed a fielding error.

Hoffpauir was in the lineup because Milton Bradley's right groin kept him out. The days of going for offense over defense might be over, for now.

"Well, I guess we're going to have to stay with our best defense and forget trying to get more offense, which means when Bradley doesn't play, I'm going to have to put (Reed) Johnson in center field and move (Kosuke) Fukudome to right," Piniella said.

Hoffpauir, who is more of a first baseman, knows his margin for error, so to speak, with Piniella is thin.

"That's obvious," Hoffpauir said. "That's baseball. That's part of this game. My job is to go out there and not screw things up, and obviously on that one play today, that's just what I did. I would say in my defense that I didn't do it as a lazy person. I was going after it hard, and I think that's something I'll continue to do. If I screw up, it's going to be because I'm going hard."

As good as Harang was, at least one Cubs hitter stepped up and took the blame.

"It's more how we hit," said Alfonso Soriano, who was 2-for-4. "We're hitting the ball good, but we're not finding our spots to get a hit. We've got to play better, because the last two games, we only scored 1 run."

Bruce Miles' game tracker

Error of their ways: Pitcher Carlos Zambrano committed a throwing error on an attempted pickoff, and right fielder Micah Hoffpauir booted Alex Gonzalez's single in the seventh, leading to an unearned run.

Hitting hiatus: The Reds outhit the Cubs 13-7. Derrek Lee (.207) was 0-for-4, and Geovany Soto was 0-for-3. The Cubs were 1-for-7 with men in scoring position.

Big Z's day: Carlos Zambrano earned a quality start, working 7 innings and giving up 7 hits and 4 runs, 3 earned. He also praised himself for keeping his composure admid some bad defense, including some on his part.

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