By Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune –
ST. LOUIS — Discussing the Cubs’ roller-coaster season Tuesday morning in Busch Stadium, Bryan LaHair suggested the team was taking “baby steps.”
If that sounds familiar, Ryan Dempster had used the same term Monday night when discussing the Cubs’ first victory in one of his starts.
(PHOTO: The Chicago Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano celebrates as he rounds the bases after tying the game with a solo home run in the ninth inning off of St. Louis Cardinals closer Jason Motte, background left, on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. The Cards won, 7-6.)
So if the Cubs are looking for a 2012 motto, the players are seemingly on board with one of their own.
But they took another baby step backward Tuesday in a 7-6 loss to the Cardinals, splitting the series and ending the five-game trip with a 2-3 record.
Yadier Molina’s opposite-field single off rookie closer Rafael Dolis brought home the winning run with two outs in the ninth, after the Cubs fought back with Alfonso Soriano’s game-tying home run off Jason Motte in the top of the inning.
Sveum suggested Dolis needs to throw his slider more often.
“He can’t keep throwing fastball after fastball,” he said. “He has a good slider and he has to use it. Not that that was the place or anything, but he’s learning to use that pitch more.”
Second baseman Darwin Barney was shaded up the middle on Molina’s ground single, based on the Cubs’ charts on his hitting tendencies.
“It’s unfortunate,” Barney said. “One quarter of a step from maybe saving a run. … That’s kind of how we play (Molina). He’s such a talented hitter and can hit to all fields.
“He tends to hit the ball up the middle to the pull side early in the count. If there were two strikes, I probably would have shifted over a little more. But with Dolis’ sinker, I committed to playing the middle.”
The Cubs bullpen was the Achilles’ heel again. Kerry Wood walked two and blew a one-run lead in the seventh. Sveum said Wood may have to throw more in the bullpen warming up.
“It’s one of those things,” Sveum said. “The ball is coming out of his hand well, but (he issues) four-pitch walks right away.”
The usually reliable James Russell gave up a go-ahead home run to Matt Carpenter in the eighth before Soriano ended a 119 at-bat homerless drought.
Despite the loss, the Cubs are confident they can hang in the Central Division race.
“We have a good team,” said LaHair, who hit his 10th home run. “As long as we stick together and continue playing like we’re playing, we’ll have a chance.
“We know where we’re at. But we also know how we play hard and give it our all for nine innings. Mistakes are going to happen sometimes.”
Starter Paul Maholm had a subpar outing after becoming the first Cub since Ken Holtzman in 1969 to produce four consecutive starts of six or more innings while allowing one or fewer runs.
Spotted to a 3-0 lead in the first, Maholm gave it back by the second inning.
The Cubs lost two heartbreakers on the trip, including a 13-inning loss to the Brewers.
“A nice ballgame that somebody had to win,” Sveum said. “And they won it.”
