Spiral continues as Cubs fall to Astros 5-3
The Cubs were doing their best to put on brave faces Monday.
General manager Jim Hendry began the day with a proclamation.
"We're not giving up," he said.
That was before the Cubs fell 5-3 to the Houston Astros, putting them 3-4 on a homestand against losing teams.
The Cubs are pretending to have wild-card ambitions, but Monday's loss put them 6 games behind leaders Colorado and San Francisco while they also chase Atlanta and Florida.
On top of it, the Cubs' starting pitcher Monday was Rich Harden, the subject of trade speculation until noon, when a waiver claim on him, apparently by the Minnesota Twins, expired without Harden being moved.
Harden (8-8) hardly had his best outing, as he walked a season-high six and gave up 5 runs and 5 hits in 5 innings.
"You can't just ignore it," Harden said of the media talk. "It was ridiculous - it has nothing to do with my performance today."
Before the game, the Cubs played the lack of a trade as evidence they were still in the wild-card race, even though they're hopelessly out of the race in the National League Central.
Afterward, the clubhouse was quiet and almost completely empty not much more than a half-hour after the game ended.
"I keep waiting for us to play for a long period of time well," Hendry said. "Every day we have a disappointing game like yesterday (a 4-1 loss to the Mets), it hurts a little bit.
"We had a chance to get to 41/2 games in the wild card. Obviously, stranger things have happened. The only real good run we had was right after the break for a couple of weeks. We certainly need that again.
"We have a chance to get back in it. All of a sudden, a team like Colorado that was on fire loses five in a row. We could have been 10 back. We've got a shot, but we need to really play well the rest of the way. So far, we haven't shown that ability to maintain it for a long time. We need to do that."
Harden couldn't do it, as the Astros picked up 3 runs in the third. In the fifth, longtime Cubs killer Carlos Lee hit a 2-run homer to give Houston a 5-0 lead.
The Cubs got 2 in the fifth, and 1 in the eighth, on a solo homer by Derrek Lee. After the game, Piniella sounded as if he knows it's probably too late.
"Let's just win some ballgames," he said. "That's the only way to approach this thing. We need a little winning streak. We need more consistency winning. We're 3-4 on this homestand. We need to do better."
At one lonely end of the clubhouse, catcher Koyie Hill kept some hope alive.
"We've got 30 games left," Hill said. "You go out there and play that game that day. Whether you're 30 games behind or 1 game behind, you're going to play the same way. Yeah, we're running out of games, but we're still very capable of making a run."
<p class="factboxheadblack">Bruce Miles' game tracker</p> <p class="News">Astros 5, Cubs 3</p> <p class="News"><b>Running it up:</b> Starting pitcher Rich Harden allowed a season-high 6 walks in 5 innings, during which he gave up 5 hits and 5 runs. He threw 33 pitches in the third inning alone and wound up with 98 for the night, with only 52 strikes.</p> <p class="News"><b>Bully for the pen:</b> Relievers Aaron Heilman, Kevin Gregg and John Grabow combined for 4 innings of shutout relief, extending the bullpen's scoreless-innings streak to 17.</p> <p class="News"><b>See Lee hit:</b> The Astros' Carlos Lee hit his 20th career homer at Wrigley Field, which ties him for second among visiting players with Albert Pujols. Adam Dunn has 24.</p> <div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=317938">Soto agrees with Piniella: Hill deserves more starts<span class="date"> [8/31/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=317979">Hendry: Waiver claims no big deal<span class="date"> [8/31/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>