Dusty Baker is known as a manager who always has his players’ backs.
But when a team makes as many glaring mistakes as the Cubs did Sunday, even Baker has a difficult time biting his lip.
After an 11-1 loss to Florida, which featured two misguided throws to the plate by veteran left-fielder Moises Alou, Baker had seen enough.
“It gets real old, especially when it’s happening by older guys,” Baker said. “They’re just trying to do too much.”
The Cubs wound up with a split in the four-game series against the defending world champion Marlins and ended the day a game behind San Francisco in the National League wild-card race with 22 games to play.
A.J. Burnett allowed six hits and one run in eight innings for his first road win of the season, striking out six and walking one. The Cubs again will try to build some momentum in a three-game series against Pittsburgh.
“Unfortunately, things didn’t work out [Sunday], but I think we feel good about how we match up with them,” Cubs catcher Michael Barrett said. “We just need to do the little things a little bit better.”
Those little things would presumably include hitting the cutoff man. After Jeff Conine singled off Glendon Rusch in the second to send Miguel Cabrera to third, Alou air mailed a throw well to the left of Barrett, bringing home the Marlins’ first run.
Alou also missed the cutoff man when a run scored in the sixth inning. He was booed on both occasions by the crowd of 38,794.
Rusch, who subbed for Matt Clement, was chased with one out in the fourth inning after putting the Cubs in a 5-0 hole, allowing five runs on seven hits and two walks.
The Cubs offense remains a mystery. They lead the league in home runs and are 63-34 when hitting at least one homer, 41-15 when they hit two. But they’re only 13-30 when they fail to homer.
The Cubs are 5-8 since facing Houston’s Roy Oswalt on Aug. 27 and are a .500 team (16-16) since Aug. 6. That’s not exactly the kind of stretch run the Cubs were expecting with their starting rotation and the addition of shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, whose groin injury could sideline him for the rest of the homestand.
– – –
Hurricane leaves champs in Chicago
The threat of Hurricane Ivan forced the first two games of the five-game series between the Florida Marlins and the Montreal Expos to be moved to U.S. Cellular Field.
Florida will be the home team, and the games on Monday and Tuesday are scheduled to begin at 1:05 p.m., with the public gates opening at 12:05 p.m. All available tickets for the games will be $15 for lower deck general admission, with $5 from each ticket going to a hurricane relief fund.
The remaining three games in the series are expected to be played over two days (next Wednesday and Thursday) in Miami.
–REDEYE
