Insurance runs prove big, as Cubs hang on to beat Astros 8-5

The Cubs were supposed to win this game. We had Ted Lilly pitching and the Astros had Russ Ortiz pitching, enough said. Seriously, Ortiz was washed up after the 2003 season, I did not even know he was still in baseball. The Cubs jumped all over Ortiz with one run in the first and two more in the third. Ortiz left after only retiring one batter in the third inning, unfortunately the Cubs were only able to get three runs off of this clown. Micah Hoffpauir had an RBI single in the first, while Milton Bradley has a bases loaded single in the third (only one run could score because of Hunter Pence's strong arm in right), and Mike Fontenot would add a Sac-Fly in the third as well.

Ted Lilly also got off to a poor start in this game, walking the lead-off hitter, then giving up a HR to Miguel Tejada, his first HR of the season. Fortunately for the Cubs, Lilly gathered himself and shut down the Astros for the remainder of the game: 6IP, 2ER, 4H, 5K. Lilly improved to 4-2 on the season.

Alfonso Soriano was the offensive star of the night for the Cubs, hitting two home runs, and three RBI's. The latter HR came in the 9th inning, which proved to be important. In all thee Cubs scored 4 runs in the 9th inning to give themselves an 8-2 lead. In that inning, Aramis Ramirez (3-4, RBI) drove in another run, and Fontenot was walked with the bases loaded.

Chad Fox made his 2009 Cubs debut and it was a disaster. He walked the first guy he faced on four pitches. Then he gave up a 3B to Ivan Rodriguez, who should be too slow to even hit a 3B, but in all fairness it looked like Joey Gathright misplayed that ball or was afraid of running into the wall. Fox retired one hitter he faced and gave up a second 3B to Darin Erstad. This time the ball should have been caught. Gathright and Soriano were running towards it and it was clearly Gathright's to catch, but he didn't call for it, and the ball hit the warning track. It looked to me as if Gathright was trying to avoid a collision with Soriano, but it also looked that if he tried to catch it, they would not have collided. My question(s): 1. Why was Gathright out there? When we have a guy on the bench, Reed Johnson, who would have caught both of these balls. This is what Johnson is known for, so I just do not understand why Lou Piniella did not have him out there for defense, his strong suit. 2. Why is Gathright on this team? He does not hit (.214 avg, he had a hit last night), he does not steal as many bases as he should, and he plays what appears to be poor defense. He appears to be a less powerful version of Freddie Bynum. Joey Gathright needs to go!

Because of Gathright's poor fielding, Lou was forced to bring Kevin Gregg in to end the game, which he did. The Cubs hung on to win 8-5 and swept the two game series with the Astros. Next up a 3-game weekend series in Milwaukee.