Saturday's game with the Cardinals was like so many others this season for the Chicago Cubs. Except this one-run contest had a novel twist for the many Cubs enthusiasts in the sellout house of 46,313 at Busch Stadium. The Cubs won.
Possessors of the major leagues' worst record in one-run verdicts at 13-29, the Cubs all but tried to give away a one-run lead in the ninth inning on Saturday, too, before hard-throwing Carlos Marmol became just too dominant for Cardinals hitters.
"It's been awhile," said manager Lou Piniella, referring to the Cubs' last one-run win. "We've usually been on the other side of that equation for the vast majority of the summer."
The Cubs' 3-2 triumph evened their season record against the Cardinals at 4-4 and represented their first one-run win since July 24, when they beat the Cardinals 6-5 in Chicago. There had been seven straight losses in one-run games after that.
The season will be littered with "ifs" for the Cubs, general manager Jim Hendry and retiring manager Piniella. What if Carlos Zambrano, recapturing some of his past brilliance here Saturday (he is 5-0 at Busch Stadium), had pitched like this all season, instead of fighting teammates and, more important, himself?
What if Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez, who homered in the same game for only the second time Saturday, had hit at the beginning of the season as the Cubs dug themselves an immediate hole? For instance, never once this season have the Cubs climbed above .500, compared to the Cardinals never once having been below .500 on any day this year.
What if the Cubs had taken care of business in the National League Central Division, which is not baseball's strongest? Taking their 4-4 mark against the Cardinals out of the mix, the Cubs are 17-32 against the rest of the division, including 3-9 against Pittsburgh and 4-8 against Houston, neither of whom was viewed as a contender before the season and both of whom have confirmed that suspicion.
A lot of the Cubs' one-run angst has come against Pittsburgh and Houston. The Cubs are 1-8 in one-run games against those two teams.
"We haven't scored many runs," Piniella said. "In this division, if you can put five, six, seven runs on the board, you have a pretty good chance of winning baseball games.
"We've got a very young bullpen. What happens invariably is that we give teams chances to score. We've lost to Houston and Pittsburgh, especially, a ton of low-scoring ball games."
In four of the Cubs' five one-run losses to Pittsburgh, the Cubs allowed no more than three runs.
"Even by July 1, we had lost about 19 or 20 games (actually 18) when the other team had scored three runs or less, which is really hard to do," Hendry said. "We've had our share of offensive inefficiency days.
"For the most part, we did not swing the bat all year with men on base or late-inning clutch situations — with guys who have been doing it most of their lives. So it's just one of those things that happened. But, as you can see, the effort is still there. Nobody's quitting."
And, so, instead of contending for a possible third division title in Piniella's four years, the Cubs will be fortunate not to lose 90 games. Instead of adding a piece here or there down the stretch, the Cubs, who had the third-highest payroll in the majors at $147 million, have turned into sellers, trading pitcher Ted Lilly and their Cajun Combo in the infield, Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot.
Instead of mixing in a couple or three rookies through the year from a deep farm system, the Cubs have had 15 rookies, with more to come.
The Cubs' longest winning streak has been four games and then only twice, which makes it a little hard to play .500 or better ball.
"You get what you deserve," Hendry said. "But this is not going to be an insurmountable rebuilding process."
