The Barry Bonds shift backfired on the Cubs on Sunday night at SBC Park, even though the Giants slugger finished with only one harmless single.
A defensive lapse by Aramis Ramirez on the Bonds shift led to a run in the seventh inning on a night when the Cubs made all the wrong moves in a 6-3 loss.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” manager Dusty Baker said. “It’s hard to win when you make mistakes like that–on the bases, defensively … a lot of ways.”
The Cubs trailed 3-2 in the seventh when Kent Mercker replaced Kerry Wood with Pedro Felix on first and no outs. Mercker got Bonds to tap out to second, but Felix kept running when he noticed third baseman Ramirez still standing by second base.
Ramirez shifted over to short as part of the Bonds shift, and never went back.
Felix scored on A.J. Pierzynski’s groundout, and the Giants never looked back.
“That happens,” Mercker said. “I’m mad at myself. I know the shift is on there, and when I see that [Grudzielanek] is going to first, I should run and cover third. The run doesn’t score if I’m covering third.”
Wood (6-5) struggled with his control early, throwing 38 balls to 40 strikes through the first five innings and hitting two batters. He wound up allowing four runs in six innings with no strikeouts.
“I didn’t locate like I wish I would’ve,” Wood said. “But overall I thought I threw the ball all right.”
It was the first time in Wood’s career he left a game without striking out anyone.
Sammy Sosa went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and a double-play grounder, leaving him 0-for-15 in his last four games and 2-for-24 on the trip.
“When you’re struggling, if you take [a pitch], it’s a strike, and if you swing, it’s a ball,” Baker said. “Every time you look up when you’re struggling, it’s two strikes. When you’re going good, every time you look up it’s 2-0 or 3-0 or 3-1. You’ve seen Sammy struggle before. He never thinks he’s struggling, so therefore he doesn’t usually stay in it too long.”
———-
Edited by Phillip Thompson (plthompson@tribune.com) and Chris Courtney (cdcourtney@tribune.com)
