astros 10, cubs 3
The Houston Astros are still alive in the National League wild-card race, even though they won't face the wild-card co-leading Cubsanymore.
That is just as well to most of the Cubs, who spent a long WrigleyField weekend being scrutinized and chastised by baseball officials,warned by umpires and, worse, pounded by Astros batters in threestraight losses.
"I'm glad it's over because they whipped us three in a row," firstbaseman Derrek Lee said after one more lopsided 10-3 loss featuringone more big Astros inning -- and one more hit-by-pitch incident thatmay cause lingering ill will into next season.
Lee was victimized with two outs in the ninth, plunked by a DanWheeler pitch that ignited the final sparks of a contentious series.Wheeler was ejected, but the Cubs believe Lee was hit under falsepretenses, the result of an exaggerated reaction by Astros outfielderLance Berkman to a high pitch from Mike Remlinger in the eighth.
Remlinger, the fourth of six Cubs pitchers, had entered the eighthwith the bases loaded and no outs after Ryan Dempster gave up twosingles and hit Carlos Beltran in the knee with a errant pitch.
Remlinger's 0-1 pitch sailed near Berkman's head, and when theball caromed away and Berkman hit the ground holding his head,everyone thought the worst.
Until TV replays showed the ball appeared to hit Berkman's bat.Then the crowd of 39,041, which at first applauded Berkman when heeventually arose, began booing.
"I thought it was chicken [blank]," an angry Remlinger saidafterward. "You think you've put someone in the hospital and then youfind out he's faking. I wish we were playing them again tomorrow."
In truth, Cubs pitchers probably hope they won't see anotheroffense like the Astros, who outscored the Cubs 35-24 in the four-game series.
"This is the Astros team you expected to play all year," said Cubsstarter Matt Clement, who left the game in the fifth when he felt arecurring strain in his upper back. "If you're not on your game,they'll hit the ball, and that's what happened. They hit us hard thelast few days. That's as hot as I've ever seen Jeff Bagwell in thelast couple years."
Indeed, the slumping Astros first baseman was 10-for-18 with threehomers and nine RBI in the series.
"Our guys played with passion," Astros manager Phil Garner said."I thought every at-bat was a hard-fought at-bat. Clement had to workfor every one of those outs."
"It was a combination of our [poor] pitching and Jeff Bagwellgetting hot," Cubs manager Dusty Baker said of the series that lefthis team with a 4-3 homestand. "It was disappointing because of theway we got beat. We got beat pretty good. That's the worst three-game stretch we've had all year. They have some good hitters, andthey were hitting everything -- home runs, base hits, balls in thehole.
"Our starters got behind early the last three games, and we wereplaying catch-up, and that's hard in this league."
Clement (9-12), who is hopeful he won't have to miss a start, saidthe team isn't looking backward.
"I don't think there will be a carryover mentally from this[series]," he said. "We caught the Astros at a bad time and we didn'tpitch as well as we should have. But we're still in the wild card andeven after today, the worst we'd be is tied. That's better than beingbehind.
"It's important to get off to a good start on the road [inMontreal tonight]. It's a tough road ahead of us in the next month,but we still have a chance to get to the playoffs. Everyone will bedisappointed in these last few days but no one will be down about theposition we're in."
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