If Sammy Sosa has said it once, Sammy Sosa has said it 10,000 times.
So after Mark McGwire hit his second home run in the 10th inning Wednesday to retake the major-league lead from Sosa and lead the Cardinals to an 8-6 comeback win, Sosa said it once more, with feeling.
“That’s why he is `The Man,’ ” Sosa said.
And Wednesday’s game is why the Cubs are the Cubs, putting a crowd of 39,689 into ecstasy one minute and then sending them plummeting into full-metal panic the next.
When Sosa’s two-run homer off Kent Bottenfield landed in the left-field bleachers to give the Cubs a 6-2 lead in the fifth, temporarily shooting Sosa ahead of McGwire 48-47 in the Roger Maris home run chase, the sellout crowd chanted “Sam-mee, Sam-mee” until Sosa made a curtain call.
It was the first time since early April that anyone had pulled ahead of McGwire in the race.
But the thrill was gone in no time at all. McGwire tied the game and pulled even with Sosa in the homer derby with a solo shot off Matt Karchner in the eighth, sending a 3-1 pitch onto Waveland Avenue to make it 6-6. And after Terry Mulholland (3-4) fell behind 2-0 against McGwire in the 10th, he belted a slider into the center-field shrubs to give the Cardinals a 7-6 lead.
“I was trying to pound him inside,” Mulholland said. “I didn’t get the third pitch in. . . . If he doesn’t swing, I walk him. . . . No big deal. Unfortunately I didn’t get the third pitch in, and he’s strong enough that it went out to dead center.”
After spending almost the entire season talking about how difficult it would be to catch Maris, McGwire changed his tune after Wednesday’s game, the 49th multihomer game of his career.
“I feel it can be done,” McGwire said.
Should McGwire have been walked either intentionally or unintentionally in those last two situations?
“I’m not the manager,” Sosa said diplomatically.
Jim Riggleman is the manager.
“It’s not easy to throw the ball exactly where you want it,” Riggleman said. “They (Karchner and Mulholland) missed with it. They had an idea of what they wanted to do and just missed.”
So Sosa’s lead in the home run race was but a fleeting moment in time, made moot by two majestic, clutch, bazooka shots off the bat of the St. Louis slugger. Sosa, who trailed McGwire by 14 homers June 1, barely had time to celebrate overtaking his rival.
“I was enjoying it because we had the lead,” Sosa said. “But then after (McGwire’s homer tied it), it was kind of like, `Wow, what’s going on?’ “
What was going on?
Easy. The Cubs bullpen was blowing a four-run lead for Mark Clark, registering the team’s fourth blown save in the last 10 games: Rod Beck blew two extra-inning leads in a 9-8 loss Aug. 8 in St. Louis, Terry Adams blew a one-run lead in the seventh in an 8-7 loss Aug. 11 in San Francisco, Beck blew a one-run lead in the ninth in a 5-4 loss Aug. 15 against Houston, and Wednesday it was Karchner’s turn.
The Cubs’ new setup man tossed away a three-run cushion by giving up a two-run homer to Delino DeShields in the seventh and the solo homer to McGwire in the eighth.
“That was a real tough ballgame,” Riggleman said. “We’ve had our share of those. We’ve come out on top of some and lost more than our share of those, I guess.”
After two-run homers by Jose Hernandez and Henry Rodriguez erased an early 2-0 deficit, Sosa took the first pitch he saw from Bottenfield in the fifth and cranked out No. 48. Sosa set a career high with his 121st run batted in and put himself on pace to hit 62 homers for the year.
After McGwire’s second homer put the Cards ahead, Ray Lankford drilled an opposite-field homer on Mulholland’s next pitch to make it 8-6. The Cubs were down to their final out when Mark Grace singled, Rodriguez doubled and Hernandez drew an intentional walk to load the bases.
But St. Louis reliever Juan Acevedo threw three straight balls to Manny Alexander before retiring him on a popup to McGwire on a 3-2 pitch, then pumped his fist as if he’d won Game 7 of the World Series.
