Chicago has developed a reputation early in this baseball season as the city of close shaves. Which is a frightening long-range prospect for fans here judging by all the cuts, nicks and gouges defacing the Sox and Cubs.
The two teams, neither able to seize command of their fates, lead the majors in one-run losses with nine apiece. The Cubs dropped into that regrettable tie with the Sox by losing 3-2 Saturday to the Florida Marlins before a crowd of 38,003 at Wrigley Field.
That makes them 6-9 this season in one-run games; the Sox are 9-9.
“A good club has got to win the close games,” Cubs manager Jim Riggleman said. “But it’s early in the season and sometimes that statistic can be misleading, such as when you battle back from being down 5-1.”
The Cubs had a smaller hurdle to clear against the Marlins, who left five men on base in the first four innings against struggling starter Steve Trachsel. Gary Sheffield had been responsible for stranding two of them after a double-play grounder and strikeout.
So he was concentrating on not chasing pitches when he hit his 13th homer in the sixth to establish a 1-0 edge. Bothered recently by a sore shoulder, Sheffield is beginning to feel healthy again with the help of cortisone shots.
“When I’m in a healthy state of mind, I can go up there and do something,” said Sheffield. “Now that I can take full hacks, I’m getting better results.”
It wasn’t until the bottom of the sixth that the Cubs even got their first hit, a Rey Sanchez liner over second baseman Ralph Milliard’s reach that was one of only three Cub hits in the game.
Sanchez was left at third base when Marlins starter John Burkett snapped off a pitch that broke away from Ryne Sandberg, who grounded out. Burkett did the same in the seventh when facing Sammy Sosa, who struck out twice against him and a final time against reliever Robb Nen to end the game.
The Cubs made an impressive defensive stand in the seventh after the bases were loaded with nobody out. After Edgar Renteria flied out, hard liners were caught at the corners by first baseman Mark Grace and third baseman Leo Gomez.
“I felt after that run they scored we still had a good chance to come back,” Gomez said. “If we could have kept it close, maybe we could have won 2-1.”
However, reliever Mike Perez was rocked for a Terry Pendleton double in the eighth, followed by a Charles Johnson homer as Florida shot ahead 3-0.
That made Gomez’s two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth too late and too little.
“One thing one-run games say about us is that we are rarely in blowouts, one way or the other,” center-fielder Brian McRae said. “It’s better to be in close games than blowouts.
“But it also says we have to win more of our share of one-run games. We’re going to be in a lot of them, so we better get over that hump and start winning more of them.”
“We played a good game,” Gomez stressed.
He makes a valid point, but teams that lose by a run often say that. Say it too much and it will be the kiss of death.
