All spring, Doug Dascenzo played defense well enough, hit the ball hard enough (.371) and ran fast enough (five steals) to stir talk that he was pushing Jerome Walton for the starting center-field job.
Walton opened the season in center, but on Thursday he removed himself in the third inning with a stomach virus. Dascenzo had no chance to loosen up on a frigid day, and he has had his problems against St. Louis (7 for 61, or .115 lifetime).
But he came off the bench to steal a base, knock a single and draw two walks.
Dascenzo had plenty of reason to smile, but he would have been happier if he hadn`t misplayed Todd Zeile`s double in the fourth, allowing slow-footed Pedro Guerrero to score from first. Official scorer Bob Rosenberg ruled it a double and an RBI, sparing Dascenzo an error that would have snapped his career errorless game streak at 173. Dascenzo needs 52 games to tie Curt Flood`s NL record of 226 errorless games in the outfield.
”I just plain missed the ball,” Dascenzo said. ”My job is to cut the ball off and I didn`t do it.”
Bye, Charlie: Shawon Dunston moved past Charlie Hollocher into fifth place on the Cubs` list of games at shortstop. Dunston played his 752nd game at short Thursday. The top four Cubs are Don Kessinger (1,618 games), Joe Tinker
(1,500), Ernie Banks (1,125) and Billy Jurges (960).
