All great fads must one day come to a close.
Hula hoops, mood rings, platform shoes, Rubik’s Cube and even the record-setting losing streak of the 1997 Cubs.
After 20 long days and 14 straight losses, the end mercifully arrived for the beleaguered Cubs on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Queens, N.Y. Following an opening 8-2 loss to the Mets that extended their National League record streak to 0-14, the second-worst start in major-league history, the Cubs held on for a 4-3 victory in the second game of the double-header to join the other 27 teams in the win column.
The Cubs have seldom finished first at anything, and now they’ll gladly settle for being No. 2 to the 1988 Baltimore Orioles, whose 0-21 start will remain as the worst in baseball history.
Relieved? Yes.
Relaxed? Not yet.
“We can’t look at it as anything other than, `Let’s get going and try to dig ourselves out of this hole,’ ” manager Jim Riggleman said. “And we have dug ourselves such a hole. Every day, each loss was being compounded by the notoriety of the streak. To make up for that now, we need two or three really good streaks.”
Kevin Foster pitched 6 1/3 innings of one-run, four-hit ball, and Turk Wendell survived a two-run ninth to register the save.
“It’s a relief,” Foster said. “Now we can be happy for one day. That’s the biggest thing. We pretty much got that monkey off our backs and can go out and, hopefully, do it again on Monday.”
“Thank God,” said Mark Grace. “Something positive to talk about. We won a game. We’re 1-14. That’s atrocious, but I’m going to have to have a little fun tonight.”
The game was scoreless in the fourth, and had all the trappings of an old-fashioned heartbreaker. Mets center-fielder Carl Everett, who led New York to a Game 1 win with a grand slam and a solo homer, made a spectacular play to rob Kevin Orie of what would have been a two-run double, making a one-handed, running catch at the wall.
“He wasn’t even looking at the ball,” Orie said afterward, shaking his head.
The Mets took a 1-0 lead in the fifth when Matt Franco, hitting .143 at the time, homered off Foster. But the Cubs finally broke through in the sixth in strange fashion. After Shawon Dunston was hit in the left hand by a Dave Mlicki pitch and stole second, Orie doubled to right. But Dunston had held up to see if right-fielder Alex Ochoa would catch it and stopped at third. Dunston came home on a wild pitch by reliever Toby Borland and Rey Sanchez singled home Orie to put the Cubs up 2-1.
They added two more in the seventh on a run-scoring single by Jose Hernandez and an RBI double by Orie.
“That was one of the hardest wins I’ve ever been part of,” Orie said. “Typical of how things have been going for us. No one is going to roll over and die for us. We had to earn it all the way up to the last out.”
Mel Rojas, the Cubs’ $13.75 million closer, suffered a strained hamstring after retiring one batter in the eighth, leaving Wendell to hold on to a 4-1 lead. With two on, Wendell struck out Todd Hundley on a forkball in a great duel after Hundley had fouled off six 3-2 pitches. Lance Johnson doubled home two runs to make it 4-3 before Manny Alexander grounded out to end the Cubs’ 0-for-April nightmare.
“I apologized to most of the guys for almost having a heart attack,” Wendell said.
The apology was accepted.
The Cubs will try to run their winning streak to two with the finale of the four-game set Monday at Shea Stadium.
“Hopefully, we can win some games now and go 14-14,” Dunston said.
Cubs Fever. Catch it.
