Mike Fontenot stood in the middle of the dugout late Wednesday during the waning moments of the Cubs’ 5-2 loss to Colorado.
Down at the far end of the dugout manager Lou Piniella was wearing a scowl that would have scared any hardened inmate on Death Row.
While Rich Harden’s three-inning stint and the stellar pitching of ex-Cub Jason Marquis were the biggest factors in the Cubs’ defeat, it was Fontenot’s baserunning gaffe in the ninth inning that ended any chance of a last-inning comeback.
With two men on, no one out and Geovany Soto at the plate as the tying run, Fontenot took off for third after an 0-2 pitch got away from Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta.
But Iannetta recovered and quickly gunned Fontenot out. Soto then grounded into a double play to end the game with a thud.
Was Fontenot trying to stay as far away from Piniella as humanly possible?
“I don’t know, I was mad at myself when it happened,” Fontenot said. “If that ball would have been a foot farther, I would have been safe. But then again, my run doesn’t matter there.”
That was why Piniella was so upset. Even if Fontenot were safe, the Cubs still trailed by three runs.
“He sees the ball get by the catcher, but you have to be almost sure you can make that play standing up,” Piniella said. “You can’t afford to get thrown out. You have an inning going, you have the tying run at-bat and the momentum was turned totally around.”
It was a frustrating afternoon for the Cubs, who watched Harden strike out the first four hitters he faced before falling apart and leaving after three innings and 92 pitches, including four walks. Marquis (2-0) helped himself with a two-run, bases-loaded single with two outs in the second.
“Jason can swing a little bit,” Soto said. “But I trust Harden’s fastball over anybody. I’ll call it any day, at any time.”
Harden ran into more problems in the third, serving up Seth Smith’s long home run and Todd Helton’s double to the right-field corner, before Alfonso Soriano allowed Helton to score off a botched pick-up of Garrett Atkins’ single.
Piniella said pitching coach Larry Rothschild told him Harden was “throwing” instead of pitching, an assessment Harden thoroughly agreed with, saying “it got ugly” in the second.
“It was one of those days I was feeling too good,” he said. “I just threw a lot of pitches.”
The Cubs came back with Micah Hoffpauir’s RBI double in the fifth, but Marquis got Reed Johnson to ground out with two men on to end the sixth. If he was still in a Cubs uniform, Marquis most likely would have been yanked at that point.
But Colorado manager Clint Hurdle let him finish the seventh, and Marquis wound up throwing 108 pitches. Being booed by Cubs fans was puzzling for Marquis, who didn’t ask to be traded and signed a three-year deal before the 2007 season because he wanted to play in Chicago.
“Obviously, Opening Day I heard it,” Marquis said. “Today I didn’t really pay attention because I’m locked into pitching. … If there was something I didn’t like, I just didn’t pay attention. That’s what you get. It happens.”
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psullivan@tribune.com
