Jeremi Gonzalez went down kicking and screaming Monday night in Three Rivers Stadium, but the rest of the Cubs went down without much of a fight in a 6-2 loss to Pittsburgh.
Gonzalez (7-6) pitched well for 6 1/3 innings, allowing only two runs while he was in the game. But he lost for the first time since May 27 thanks to two bad bounces and a fine outing by Pirates starter Jon Lieber (6-10), who held the Cubs to one run on five hits over 7 1/3 innings.
After being removed by manager Jim Riggleman, Gonzalez kicked the dugout wall, threw his gum and shouted out an obscenity as the TV cameras zoomed in. He insisted he wasn’t upset by the hook.
“I was disappointed in myself,” Gonzalez said. “I’ll just wait five days and get another ball.”
The Pirates’ first two runs were the result of wacky bounces past outfielders Henry Rodriguez and Glenallen Hill. In the third inning, Tony Womack lined one down the left-field line, where Rodriguez looked like he was slamdancing in a mosh pit. He slammed against a fence while the ball bounced past him, and Womack rounded the bases for an inside-the-park home run to tie the game 1-1.
Turner Ward lined a ball to the right-field corner in the sixth, where Hill made a turtle-like jog to chase it and waited for a carom that never came, giving Ward a stand-up triple.
“Luck of the draw,” Riggleman said of the two misplays. “The one in right didn’t come out. The one in left did come out. I don’t see anything that could’ve been done there.”
Al Martin’s RBI groundout gave the Pirates a 2-1 lead, and Terry Adams let the game get out of hand in Pittsburgh’s four-run seventh, allowing two earned runs and committing two balks.
