Rough night for Castro

In the span of just four games, Starlin Castro has gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.

When the Cubs' 20-year-old rookie met the media before Monday night's game with the Marlins, it was to celebrate his Wrigley Field debut and talk about his record-setting, 6-RBI performance Friday in his big-league debut at Cincinnati.

After the Cubs' 4-2 loss to Florida, the media wanted to talk about his 3 errors and not hustling after the ball after his third error, allowing the batter to take an extra base.

"Yeah, he learned a few things tonight," manager Lou Piniella said. "We just had a talk with him upstairs."

Castro committed throwing errors in the third and sixth innings. In the eighth, he made a fielding miscue on Hanley Ramirez's grounder to the hole. When Castro didn't hustle after the ball, Ramirez took kept running and took second base.

"I have to say it was a rookie mistake, and I've just got to learn from it," Castro said through coach Ivan DeJesus, who served as translator.

Castro denied being nervous, but nerves would have been understandable for a 20-year-old kid out of the Dominican Republic playing before a big home crowd.

"Might be, first time here at Wrigley," Piniella said.

Before the game, DeJesus and coach Alan Trammell worked with Castro and second baseman Ryan Theriot (the former shortstop) on plays around the bag.

"We want him to get used to the field and improve on defense," DeJesus said. "What we want him to do more is on the routine ball. Catch the routine ball, make the move to second base, make that combination real well. Go from there."

The expectations for Castro are high, but Piniella said beforehand he didn't want them to be too high.

"They shouldn't expect that much out of him," Piniella said. "They should just let the young man play. He had that really, really big game his first major-league game, but don't put that type of expectation on him. Just let him play. Let him relax. Let him settle in as a good young major-league shortstop."