Cubs’ Garza struggles, with no help from offense
MIAMI — The Miami Marlins’ game notes point out how quickly starting pitcher Mark Buehrle works in his starts.
The former White Sox left-hander routinely beats the major-league average for length of games when he pitches.
It was going that way Wednesday night against the Cubs. Buehrle and the Marlins managed to beat the Cubs 9-1 in 2 hours and 38 minutes, relatively fast by today’s standards.
The only thing keeping Buehrle and the Marlins from polishing off the Cubs more quickly was that the Marlins got to bat against Cubs starting pitcher Matt Garza and the bullpen.
Already leading 2-0, the Marlins scored twice in the fifth, three times in the sixth and once more in each of the seventh and eighth.
In fairness to Garza, it was his first poor start of the season, and the Cubs still aren’t scoring any runs for him or anybody else.
The Marlins chased Garza (1-1) in the sixth. The ever-animated Garza had a few words for home-plate umpire Brian O’Nora on his way out. (He said he wasn’t angry at the ump). He also grabbed a bat from the dugout and took it down the tunnel with him.
At least the Cubs managed to keep a sense of humor about that, even as they lost their fourth in a row to fall to 3-9.
“He thought he was going to hit,” manager Dale Sveum said. “He was going to get some swings down in the tunnel there. He was going to go teeing them up down there.”
Garza had a different take. He claimed to be mad at himself for failing to get a sacrifice bunt down, something the Cubs have failed at regularly. They have just 1 sac bunt after spending part of spring training taking part in a much-publicized bunting tournament.
“It’s frustrating,” Garza said. “I’m going to keep working. I’m going to keep working and keep trying to get better every day and get after it and keep going. That’s all I can do.
“I wanted to go square up in the mirror and see where I was with my stance. Stuff like that.”
Garza gave up a 2-run homer to Donnie Murphy in the third inning and a 2-run blast to Hanley Ramirez in the fifth. It was Ramirez’s second homer in two nights.
Sveum says he sees nothing wrong with the team’s effort.
“Besides two games, we really haven’t put together a whole lot of runs,” he said. “We haven’t hit the ball out of the ballpark. It’s tough to score runs when you don’t have slugging percentage and you’re not getting people on base.
“Besides a couple hiccups, you can see the guys still running balls out during games and running routine flyballs out. The effort’s fine. But we’ve got to find a way to score some runs and get on the board first.”
As for Buehrle, he has not lost to the Cubs since 2007, when he was with the Sox.
“We face them every year, but maybe one start here and there,” he said. “I know they’ve got a bunch of young guys over there. They’re pretty aggressive.
“(Marlins catcher John) Buck called a great game. He said let’s throw a lot of off-speed pitches because those guys are so aggressive.”
bmiles@dailyherald.com