Two pitches in bad spots, two haunting losses.
The Cubs were stunned enough Saturday not to move right away, sitting and standing in the dugout like zombies after Fred McGriff’s three-run homer with two outs in a four-run ninth inning was a true low blow in their 6-5 loss to Atlanta.
“I made a mistake,” Larry Casian said of the slider McGriff planted in the right-field seats for his second homer in the game and 25th of the year, capping a 5-for-5 performance. “I didn’t make my pitch and any one of those guys can make you pay for that.”
Manager Jim Riggleman was reminded of Friday’s loss after McGriff smeared this 1-2 offering. Steve Trachsel tried to get a forkball in the dirt past Marquis Grissom on a 3-2 count Friday and Grissom hit a two-run double in that 4-3 loss when that ball didn’t drop enough.
Riggleman visited Casian on the mound just before he served that homer pitch to McGriff. “I didn’t like the previous pitch,” he said of one McGriff fouled away. “They (Casian and catcher Tyler Houston) wanted to come in and the ball ended up away. So this time we wanted a slider in the dirt and didn’t get it.”
The bullpen unraveled piece by piece after Jaime Navarro’s strong performance for seven innings (one run, six hits) in search of his sixth straight victory. Terry Adams was asked to take control in the eighth and lasted only four batters, gone after a McGriff double. After he left, a Bob Patterson walk and a Turk Wendell walk forced in a run and this was the beginning of the end of the Cubs’ 5-1 lead.
The Cubs have thrown their best at the world champs in Trachsel and Navarro and have been rejected. They are 15-26 in one-run games, worst in the National League. Just as the White Sox’s 26 one-run losses are the worst in the American League.
