You`ve heard of the witching hour? The Cubs` came at 8 p.m., Chicago time, Monday.
They had just decimated Philadelphia 10-2 in the first game of a double-header, and the Veterans Stadium scoreboard showed the Montreal Expos trailing the Pittsburgh Pirates on the other side of the state.
Not only that, but the Phils` Don Carman, 1-11 on the year, was starting the nightcap for the Phils.
Then the clock swept past 8, the Expos rallied to win in Pittsburgh and the Phillies began rolling toward their 7-4 defeat of the Cubs before 22,160. So instead of wiping away the Expos` 1 1/2-game lead in one night, the Cubs slipped to 2 back.
”We still have 57 games to go,” manager Don Zimmer said after the first game. ”We`re going to (play) all 57, that`s all I can tell you.”
Zimmer called the Cubs` first four months ”pretty special,” but he threw in some caution developed in 40 years of professional baseball.
”It`s not like we`re down to the last 15 days of the season,” he said.
”We`ve got 50 games left. I think everybody knows anything can happen in 20 days, even.”
A lot can happen in one day-six Cub homers, six Cub errors, a brilliantly pitched game and one not so.
In the first game, Rick Sutcliffe handcuffed the Phillies, allowing just three hits and one earned run in his fifth complete game.
The game rid Sutcliffe of some recent frustration. He had lost five of his last six starts and hadn`t won since July 7.
”I just haven`t been as dominating as I`d like,” said Sutcliffe (11-9 with a 3.42 earned run average). ”It`s time for me to do my part.”
He did Monday night. Sutcliffe drove in the go-ahead run in the fifth with a sharp double down the right-field line.
That made it 2-1, but within two innings they might have stopped keeping score. Sutcliffe apparently did. ”When you score nine runs, it`s awful tough to lose,” he said.
”When they`re going good, it almost looks like they`re not trying,”
Zimmer said of his pitcher and Giants ace Rick Reuschel, whom one questioner compared with Sutcliffe.
The Cubs turned a 4-1 edge into an 8-1 rout in the seventh. The bases were loaded when Zimmer sent Dwight Smith to bat for Lloyd McClendon.
Smith immediately drove reliever Greg Harris` pitch well into the right-field seats for a pinch-grand slam.
That provided plenty of room for Sutcliffe, whose only major mistake was a second-inning gopher pitch to John Kruk, who swatted his fifth homer and his second in three at-bats since coming off the disabled list.
”The ball really seemed to carry,” Sutcliffe said.
Especially when the Cubs hit it. Sandberg smashed two homers (Nos. 14 and 15) for the second time this season and Damon Berryhill added another in the opener while Mark Grace and Jerome Walton hit solo shots in the nightcap.
”This is a really big series for our ballclub,” Sutcliffe said. ”We`ve played St. Louis and we`ve played the Mets, and those (wins) created a lot more attention. But this team has played us tough all year.”
They kept it up in the nightcap. The last-place Phils unloaded for three runs in the first inning against starter Paul Kilgus (6-10).
Former Cub Bob Dernier rolled a single through the left side of the infield with one out, and then Kilgus walked Tom Herr.
Kilgus might have escaped when Ricky Jordan pounded the ball right at Dunston. But the shot ricocheted off Dunston`s right hand for an error, his team-leading 13th.
It was an unlucky 13th. Dunston left the game with a bruised hand and underwent X-rays.
Kilgus walked Randy Ready to force in the first run, and then Charlie Hayes singled to score the second. The third came across on Kilgus` wild pitch.
Kilgus lasted just long enough to watch Jordan and Ready single to open the third. They came around on former Cub Steve Lake`s single off Jeff Pico, who had moved the runners up a base by throwing a pickoff attempt into center field.
Kilgus wasn`t close to perfect on a night he needed to be.
Grace made it 5-1 when he drove a 3-and-2 pitch from Carman deep into the first level of the right-field bleachers.
Walton`s fourth homer started a three-run sixth, with Darrin Jackson doubling in the other two runs with two out.
But errors by Dunston, Jeff Pico and Domingo Ramos (who had two) hurt the Cubs. By the sixth inning, four of the Phillies` seven runs were unearned.
