Diamondbacks upend Cubs, move one game from sweep
05.10.2007 14:02
Sport and Travel
- Source: USA Today
PHOENIX — The planets were all lined up for a Chicago Cubs victory Thursday.
Pitcher Ted Lilly was 9-1 after Cubs losses in the regular season and owned a 2-0 lead after rookie Geovany Soto homered in the second inning. GAME 2 REPORT: Diamondbacks 8, Cubs 4 Apparently, the Arizona Diamondbacks don't believe in astronomy any more than they do in sabermetrics, however. They continued to defy the stars, the stats and the experts, roaring from behind for an 8-4 victory. That sent the Cubs home to Wrigley Field for Saturday's Game 3 of the best-of-five NL Division Series a loss away from extending their World Series championship drought to 99 years. Baseball hasn't seen anything quite like these Diamondbacks in 101 years. Not since the 1906 Chicago White Sox (.246) has a team posted the best record in the league with the worst batting average (.250). So, who's counting? • Not Chris Young, a .237 hitter in the regular season. The rookie center fielder launched a two-out, three-run homer off Lilly in the third. Two batters later, veteran Eric Byrnes drilled a triple off the fence in left-center field for a 4-2 lead. • Not Stephen Drew. The young shortstop who batted .238 smacked a one-out, two-run triple to right in the fourth for a 6-2 cushion. He homered in Game 1. • Not Doug Davis. Even the left-handed pitcher helped with the bat, laying down a run-scoring suicide squeeze in the fifth in the Diamondbacks nine-hit attack. Arizona's first six runs came off Lilly, and they put Lou Piniella under the managerial microscope again. A night after he was questioned for taking ace Carlos Zambrano out of a 3-1 loss early, Piniella raised eyebrows for staying with Lilly too long. Lilly struggled from the outset. He walked two in the first but got out of the inning unscathed. In the second, however, he was shelled for four hits and four runs. After Young's homer, he slammed his glove to the ground in frustration. Although the Cubs trailed 4-2 in the fourth, Piniella let Lilly bat with a runner on. He struck out. Lilly finally was lifted in the fourth after Drew's triple. His disastrous line: 79 pitches (44 for strikes), seven hits, four walks, six runs. This was Lilly's fifth postseason appearance, but Davis, in his first playoff start, outpitched him. Just like Aug. 25, when Davis beat Lilly at Chase Field 3-1 with an eight-strikeout, seven-inning gem. Davis struggled at the end of the season, allowing 16 runs in 18 1/3 innings over his final four starts. But he settled down after Soto homered in the second. "I had a decent curveball," Davis told the Associated Press. "I threw it early for strikes. Around the fourth or fifth inning, I was able to expand it and get swings." The Cubs had runners in the third, fourth and fifth, but none reached second base. Davis left with two outs after two walks in the sixth to a huge roar from the crowd of 48,575, which pinch-hitter Daryle Ward quieted with a two-run triple off Todd Cruz. It wasn't enough. In two games here, the Cubs mustered 12 hits and five runs and left 18 on base. Their top hitters —Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez— are a combined 4-for-27 in the series. The success has struck a positive note with Drew. "Everything is going our way right now and hopefully we'll keep it that way," he told the Associated Press. "We had clutch hitting and then clutch defense." Notes: Cubs RHP Kerry Wood, who made a comeback this year from career-threatening shoulder injury, pitched two scoreless inning and became the 20th player in franchise history to appear in three postseasons — 1998, 2003 and 2007. ... The Cubs were 19-24 against lefties in the regular season. ... With scattered showers in the area, the roof at Chase Field was closed. ... The crowd of 48,575 was 458 short of a sellout. *** Contributing: The Associated Press
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