Thursday night’s 6-5 loss to Shane Reynolds, Vinny Castilla and the Houston Astros just about extinguished the Cubs’ playoff hopes. It also left Cubs manager Don Baylor fighting mad.
“I’ll fight anybody who says this team has given up,” Baylor said. “We have not given up. We fought back and had their relievers on the ropes. We had a chance.”
Baylor was referring to the Cubs’ three-run eighth-inning rally. Sparked by Fred McGriff’s home run with Sammy Sosa on base after Sosa’s fourth hit, the Cubs trimmed the lead to 6-5 and had runners on first and third.
But Octavio Dotel came in and struck out Eric Young to end the threat and drop the Cubs nine games behind the first-place Astros and five games behind wild-card leader St. Louis with nine games to play.
Losing pitcher Kevin Tapani (9-14) thought the Thursday’s game before 38,154 fans at Wrigley Field turned on two of the 84 pitches he threw.
Reynolds blooped a two-out single that scored two runs and put the Astros ahead 2-1 in the second inning. And Castilla smashed Tapani’s hanging slider for a three-run homer and a 6-2 lead in the sixth.
“I threw the pitch I wanted to throw to Reynolds, and it broke his bat,” Tapani said. “The slider to Castilla brought the blow we couldn’t overcome.”
Sosa was outstanding in defeat. He went 4-for-5, following his first-inning 59th home run of the season with three singles.
Reynolds (13-10) limited the Cubs to four hits in 6 1/3 innings.
The Cubs started the game supercharged 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 bottom of the first, he put the Cubs ahead 1-0 with his home run. First base coach Billy Williams stopped Sosa to hand him another flag, which Sosa carried around the bases.
The Astros trailed only momentarily. In the second inning, Reynolds delievered a two-run single to center field.
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 Richard Hidalgo and a walk to Orlando Merced in the sixth. Acosta’s message didn’t help. Castilla homered into the left-field bleachers for a three-run homer and a 6-2 lead.
