Shane Reynolds and Vinny Castilla led the first-place Houston Astros to a 6-5 victory that all but extinguished the Cubs’ flickering playoff hopes Thursday night before 38,154 fans at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs rallied for three runs in the eighth inning, two on Fred McGriff’s home run with Sammy Sosa on base. But Octavio Dotel came in and struck out Eric Young with the tying run on third base and the go-ahead runner on first.
Reynolds (13-10) put the Astros ahead 2-1 when he hit a two-out, two-run single in the second inning. The Astros never trailed thereafter. Reynolds limited the Cubs to four hits, one of them Sosa’s 59th home run, in the 6 1/3 innings he worked.
The loss dropped the Cubs nine games behind Houston with nine games to play and five games behind St. Louis in the chase for the wild-card berth.
Castilla, the veteran third baseman the Cubs tried unsuccessfully to obtain earlier in the season, hit a three-run homer in the sixth inning off loser Kevin Tapani (9-14) to put the Astros ahead 6-2.
Sosa had four hits in the loss, three singles and his home run.
The Cubs’ delayed flight from Pittsburgh didn’t land at O’Hare until 2:37 a.m. Thursday. But the team started the game super-charged by the emotional energy from a capacity crowd that saluted the United States in a pregame ceremony honoring the victims and those who tried to rescue them after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Sosa held aloft a small American flag as he sprinted to right field to start the game.
In the home half of the first, Sosa put the Cubs ahead 1-0 when he smashed his 59th homer of the season–a towering drive into the first row of the right-field bleachers. First base coach Billy Williams stopped Sosa to hand him another flag, which Sosa carried around the bases.
The Astros trailed only momentarily, however. In the second inning, Lance Berkman doubled and took third on a single by Richard Hidalgo, who stole second. Reynolds’ two-out single to center chased home both runners and put the Astros ahead 2-1.
Rondell White’s two-out single scored Sosa, who reached on a fielder’s choice, to tie the game 2-2 in the third.
The Astros struck in the fifth for a 3-2 lead, keyed by catcher Tony Eusebio’s double.
Cubs pitching coach Oscar Acosta came to the mound to talk to Tapani after he gave up a single to Hidalgo and a walk to Orlando Merced in the sixth. Acosta’s message didn’t help. Castilla socked a 1-0 pitch into the left-field bleachers for a three-run homer and a 6-2 lead.
