After compiling a 5-1 record and 1.77 earned-run average in 12 starts with the Cubs last season, Rich Harden is 4-3 with a 5.27 ERA in 10 starts this year.
Last season he allowed six homers, this year 11, and he already has walked 26, compared with 30 with the Cubs last year. Those totals include a pair of homers and three walks in five innings Friday.
“The first home run was a missed pitch with the fastball and so was the second, so it wasn’t only the walks, it was missing in the strike zone that hurt him,” pitching coach Larry Rothschild said.
Is he concerned about Harden, who was slowed by arm problems last year and has been on the disabled list with back problems this year?
“Before he got hurt [May 22], he was starting to throw the ball better, getting into the flow of it,” Rothschild said. “His first game back, he threw pretty well, then [Friday] I don’t know if it was just the result of getting back into the rhythm of it, maybe being a little fatigued from that first start, but he certainly wasn’t himself.”
Short of help: The Cubs had no position players left in their 10-inning victory over Cleveland on Friday, and while they still had catcher Geovany Soto on the bench Saturday, they were basically out of relief pitchers when they won 6-5 in the 13th.
“We were going to send [Randy] Wells out there and then figure out who would we start [Sunday],” manager Lou Piniella said.
Wells was spared the relief job and will start. He might have to go deep in the game because Carlos Marmol has pitched three straight days and Angel Guzman pitched two innings with a tight muscle in his arm.
“Our bullpen is in a little bit of an overused state right now,” Piniella said.
Second city: The Cubs became only the second team since the 1975 Reds to win consecutive games in which they trailed by at least four runs. They beat the White Sox 6-5 on Thursday after trailing 5-1 and the Indians 8-7 on Friday after trailing 7-0.
The other team to do it, according to Elias Sports Bureau, was the 2005 Yankees.
Extra innings: Ex-Cub Mark DeRosa was a late scratch from the Indians’ lineup Saturday. His left hip was sore from Friday’s run-in with the metal telephone box in the Cubs’ bullpen while chasing a third-inning foul ball. He pinch-hit in the seventh inning and struck out with the potential winning runs on base. … Remember Neal Cotts? The lefty reliever has strung together 7 2/3 scoreless innings at Triple-A Iowa.
