The Curse of Wrigley Field

  John Heller/AP

The way things have been going between the Pirates and the Cubs you’d thing the more they’d play, the worse off Pittsburgh would be. But that wasn’t the case Saturday night when the Pirates edged out a 5-4 win over the Cubs in 14 innings.

Kerry Wood blew his fourth save of the year and it comes as no surprise that he began his ninth inning by hitting Doug Mientkiewicz on the third pitch of the at bat.  Several hitters later, Mientkiewicz scores the game-tying run and fans are sent on a five inning journey of extra innings.

To his credit he bounced back and pitched a total of two innings giving up just the one tying run. In fact, the bullpen should be given some credit. The relievers pitched 8-2/3 innings and gave up just two runs. You can’t blame the pitchers for giving their team a chance to win for eight innings. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh’s bullpen was just that much better. Matt Capps and John Grabow went three innings each and Grabow was given the win for his troubles.

Offensively, the Cubs failed to convert on numerous scoring chances, which happens when you play a 14 inning game and score your last three runs in the eighth. Mark DeRosa (1-for-3), Reed Johnson (0-for-5) and Ronny Cedeno (1-for-4) left four runners on base each over the course of the game. Aramis Ramirez (1-for-6, 2 RBI) left three runners on base, but at least he drove in a couple of runs.

Geovany Soto (2-for-5) and Kosuke Fukudome (2-for-4) drove in the Cubs’ other two runs.