The ball bounced high in the air after a postgame spiking by Cubs catcher Koyie Hill late Friday afternoon at Miller Park.
Hill didn’t bother to watch it land. He trudged toward the dugout with his helmet in hand and an angry glare etched on his face, believing the game had been stolen by a bad call at the plate.
Only a few feet away, the Milwaukee Brewers were celebrating a 4-3 comeback victory over the Cubs in their home opener as a sellout crowd of 45,455 pretended it was October instead of April.
The Brewers had just scored two runs in the ninth off closer Kevin Gregg, and Rickie Weeks’ headfirst slide brought home the winning run on a grounder to shortstop Ryan Theriot.
Upset over the call of plate umpire Jim Reynolds, Hill later conceded his emotional act of defiance was “the wrong way to act.”
“I was talking to teammates about that,” Hill said. “You know, you get caught up in it sometimes. You wish things had gone a little differently.”
So did manager Lou Piniella. But Piniella said Reynolds’ call was correct; the players lost the game, not the umpires.
The Cubs’ bullpen issued five walks during a 14-batter stretch from the seventh through the ninth, and that had Piniella’s stomach churning.
“You can’t walk as many people as we did from the seventh inning on,” he said. “You’re going to lose. Get the ball over the plate, make the other team beat you — period.”
Hill’s two-run homer off Seth McClung in the sixth gave the Cubs a 3-2 lead, and Piniella used six relievers in the seventh and eighth to get Rich Harden in position for a victory in his first start.
But after Gregg walked Chris Duffy on a 3-2 slider with one out in the ninth, the Cubs’ nightmare began to unfold. Weeks doubled over Alfonso Soriano’s head to tie the game and advanced to third on a wild pitch before Corey Hart walked. Braun then followed with a slow roller to Theriot, who made an off-balance throw to the plate that arrived an instant too late.
“[Weeks] had his hand in,” Piniella said. “I think the umpire was in real good position to make the call. It was a close play.”
Hill blamed himself for the pitch selection, a slider rather than a fastball on a 3-2 pitch to Duffy — the walk that turned into the tying run.
“That was stupid,” he said. “I’ll take full responsibility for that. It was flat-out the wrong pitch. There’s nothing else you can say about it. You have a lead going into the ninth inning, you get one out and nobody on base, you have to be aggressive and go at the guy.”
The loss was the second last-inning heartbreaker in the last three games for the Cubs, and Gregg was on the mound in both of them. Like Piniella, Gregg said the walks led to their downfall.
“It’s uncalled for,” he said. “We can’t just be letting guys down without giving them a fighting chance. Unfortunately, that’s the way it worked.”
The Cubs’ hot-and-cold offense was frozen under the roof, with the exception of home runs from Milton Bradley and Hill. The team went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, and Bradley flied out on a 3-0 pitch from Braden Looper with two men on to end the fifth.
Harden outpitched Looper, but his effort was wasted in the end.
“I don’t know,” Piniella said. “Looper is a good pitcher.”
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psullivan@tribune.com
