The Stros showed some heart tonight as they held on behind some outstanding relief pitching by Mike Gallo and Dan Miceli to beat the Cubbies, 5-3.
After Bags and Jeff Kent yaks staked the Stros to an early lead, the Cubs tied it at 3-3 behind three solo shots off of Stros’ starter Brandon Gopherworth, er. or make that Duckworth (Duckworth has now given up a rather startling nine home runs in 24 innings this seasons). After the third shot in the fourth, the Cubs loaded the bases with no outs against Duckworth, when manager Jimy Williams made good use of his quick hook. Gallo came in and and struck out Corey Patterson on four pitches and then induced Ramon Martinez to bounce into a 1-2-3 double play. Gallo won player of the game for that effort.
The Cubs loaded the bases again in the sixth off of Brandon Backe (the only ineffective Astros reliever in this game; guess it wasn’t a good night for pitchers named Brandon) when Miceli came on to get Lee to pop out and fan Patterson and Martinez. Mike Lamb came through with a clutch pinch hit two run double in the eighth, and then Lidge and Dotel mowed down the Cubs with relative ease in the final two frames. Between them, Patterson, Martinez, and Derreck Lee left an incredible 15 Cub teammates stranded on base, much to the vocal disdain of the Cubs’ fans.
The only downer of the game was the continued futility of Duckworth, who was one of the three pitchers that the Stros received from the Phillies in the Billy Wagner deal. My sense is that Duckworth needs some tuning at AAA to determine whether he can pitch at this level consistently, but I don’t know whether the Stros have any options left under his contract.
The Rocket revs up for his first ever game at Wrigley on Wednesday afternoon against the Cubs’ testy Matt Clement, who likes to throw high and tight just as much as Clemens. Should be interesting.