The wild, wild card
Despite slumping Sosa, Cubs catch Mets again in NL race
Posted: Wednesday September 23, 1998 01:42 AM
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Sliding Sammy: Sosa scored on Mickey Morandini's sacrifice fly to shallow center, as the Cubs pulled even in the wild-card race AP |
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- The Chicago Cubs are back on
track even if Sammy Sosa isn't.
The Cubs moved into a tie for the NL wild-card spot, snapping a
three-game losing streak with a 5-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on
Tuesday.
No thanks to Sosa.
Chicago's slugger is mired in his worst slump of the season at the worst
time of year.
"Everybody knows I've been in a tough situation, but I'm going to come
back," pledged Sosa, whose Cubs are tied with New York, 5-3 losers to
Montreal on Tuesday night.
The Cubs and Mets each have four games left.
Sosa failed to close in on Mark McGwire,
holding at 63 home runs and leaving him in an 0-for-21 drought.
Before striking out for the second time, Sosa hit a towering shot off
Brewers reliever Al
Reyes' changeup in the seventh that just hooked foul down the
left-field line.
To chants of "Sam-my! Sam-my!" Sosa went 0-for-4 with a walk. He has not
gotten a hit and has struck out eight times since hitting homer No. 63 with
a grand slam last Wednesday in San Diego.
Before his last three at-bats, Sosa had to wait as a new pitcher warmed
up.
"I'm not trying to ice the kicker," Brewers manager Phil Garner said.
Sosa tried three different bats but none held any magic on this night.
"I tried to change my luck," he explained. "But I can't find it. The
Brewers pitched me great today."
Sosa entered the game at sold-out County Stadium two homers behind
McGwire, who also failed to go deep Tuesday night. The St. Louis slugger
hit his 65th against the Brewers on Sunday.
Sosa has not gotten a hit and has struck out eight times since hitting homer No. 63 with a grand slam last Wednesday in San Diego AP | |
Terry
Mulholland (6-5) pitched eight solid innings. He gave up one run on six
hits, three by Mark Loretta.
At a time when the Cubs needed Sosa the most, Chicago's slugger hoped to
regroup against his favorite pitching staff. Ten of Sosa's homers have come
off the Brewers, his most against any team. Earlier this month, he
connected for Nos. 59-62 against Milwaukee during a three-game series at
Wrigley Field.
But he struck out twice, hit into a fielder's choice and flied out.
"He's out of whack right now," Garner said. "We made some better pitches
on him, but he's not swinging the bat like he did when we were in Chicago.
He was focused and when he got a pitch on the plate, he really jumped on
it.
"What we saw in Chicago was the man at his absolute best. But he can
still hit out," Garner said. "You still have to pitch him cautiously. You
saw the way I managed the game, I brought in three relievers to face him."
The Cubs play one more game at Milwaukee before finishing with three
games in Houston, and Cubs manager Jim Riggleman said he was confident
Sosa's bat would come alive yet.
"When Sammy struggles a bit, I look at it, if we get a win, now we got a
better chance to win the next time because sooner or later, he's going to
get 'em," Riggleman said.
Sosa put a scare into the crowd in the second inning after Bill
Pulsipher caught up in the moment on the full-count fastball: "I tried
to throw one about 300 mph and ended up walking him."
Sosa took third on Gary Gaetti's
double and scored on Mickey
Morandini's sacrifice fly to shallow center. But he slid right into
catcher Bobby Hughes, taking a shin guard to his groin area. Sosa stayed
down for a minute before getting up and returning to the dugout.
"I was pretty hurt. He hit me in the wrong part of my body," Sosa said.
Scott
Servais followed with an RBI single off Pulsipher (3-3) for a 2-0 lead.
The Cubs made it 4-0 in the third, when Pulsipher failed to back up home
plate on Glenallen
Hill's RBI single and didn't cover the bag in time to get Morandini on
a bases-loaded groundball to first.
Lance
Johnson's second homer of the year made it 5-0 in the fourth.
Two fans jumped out of the right-field bleachers in the bottom of the
seventh, and one of them, a tattooed, bare-chested man, dropped at the
slugger's feet and bowed in adulation to Sosa and cheers from the crowd
until grounds crew and security personnel converged on him.
"He said, `You are the man,"' Sosa disclosed with a smile.
Notes: Jeromy
Burnitz hit his 38th home run in the ninth off Cubs reliever Rod Beck. .... The
crowd of 52,287 gave the Brewers three straight 50,000-plus crowds for the
first time in club history.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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