By John Fay
Enquirer staff writer

PHOTO GALLERY

Photo gallery from game.

CHICAGO - John Vander Wal was about a third of the way up the first-base line when he realized something was amiss.

Vander Wal was absolutely certain he had walked.

"All of the sudden, I heard the crowd react," the Reds right fielder said.

"Then I saw the Cubs running off the field."

Home plate umpire Brian Runge had called strike 3.

"It was a ball," Vander Wal said. "It wasn't even borderline. That's a no-brainer."

Replays support Vander Wal's contention, but Runge's call was all that mattered. It was a strikeout instead of a walk.

That killed the bases loaded threat, and a little later the Reds had a loss instead of a win as the Cubs won 5-4 before a crowd of 38,761 on a rainy Wednesday afternoon at Wrigley Field.

Sammy Sosa homered in the seventh inning for the game-winner.

But the pivotal play, or rather pivotal call, came in the Reds' half of the seventh.

Vander Wal came to bat with the bases loaded and two outs.

He was facing Todd Wellemeyer. Just as the count got to 3-2, it began raining hard.

Vander Wal kept battling Wellemeyer, spoiling strikes by fouling them back.

Wellemeyer slowed things down by asking for a new ball on every pitch.

On the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Vander Wal thought he had won the battle.

The game was immediately delayed by rain for 54 minutes after the call. The conditions were close to unplayable when Runge called strike 3.

"I don't care what the conditions are. You can't let it affect the outcome of the game," Vander Wal said. "A ball's a ball. A strike's a strike."

It's rare that a game turns so much on one pitch, but this one did.

"That's a run," Vander Wal said, "and we have Jason (LaRue) coming up. He's been swinging a hot bat."

After the delay, the weather came into play again.

Todd Van Poppel, on in relief of starter Paul Wilson, got the first two outs of the seventh. But the rain returned. By the time he faced Sosa, it was coming down in sheets.

Van Poppel fell behind 3-0 to Sosa. He slipped on the mound on the fourth pitch, which Sosa hit out for his 19th home run of the year.

"I made a bad pitch," Van Poppel said. "I fell behind him. You can't do that. I didn't do my job on that at-bat."

After Van Poppel slipped on another pitch to Moises Alou, pitching coach Don Gullett went to the mound and had them repair it. The dirt the grounds crew added to dry the mound was breaking away.

Sosa's home run was the fifth of the game.

"Basically, they hit one home run more than us," Miley said. "That's what it came down to."

The Reds took a two-run lead in the first on D'Angelo Jimenez's two-out, two-run single.

The Cubs tied it on Alou's home run, which followed a Sosa walk, in the third.

Then Wily Mo Pena and LaRue hit solo home runs in the fourth to make it 4-2.

The Cubs came back in the fifth the same way they did in the third. Derrek Lee followed Alou's walk with a home run.

"That's what killed me," Wilson said. "The two walks and the two bad pitches resulted in four runs."

Wilson had great stuff, allowing only four hits and striking out six over six innings. But Wilson, who came in averaging 1.9 walks per start, walked five.

"I don't want to judge an umpire's strike zone," Wilson said. "That's a bad business to get into. We've got to make adjustments to hitters and to umpire's strike zones."

The Reds clearly weren't pleased with Runge's zone.

"I could probably elaborate on that," Miley said. "But I'll let (the media) assess it."

The game ended on another strike 3 call - to Jimenez with the tying run at first. The pitch appeared low.

"I guess the umpire was tired with the rain," Jimenez said. "He wanted to get home."

Cincinnati	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Freel 3b-cf	5	0	2	0	0	3	.277
Larkin ss	2	1	0	0	2	0	.294
Hummel 3b	0	0	0	0	0	0	.239
JaCruz ph	1	0	0	0	0	1	.245
Casey 1b	5	1	2	0	0	0	.341
Romano pr	0	0	0	0	0	0	.182
Dunn lf	5	0	2	0	0	2	.265
DJimenez 2b	5	0	2	2	0	1	.273
WPena cf-rf	3	1	1	1	1	0	.295
Vander Wal rf	4	0	0	0	0	2	.250
Van Poppel p	0	0	0	0	0	0	.125
LaRue c	4	1	1	1	0	1	.242
Pwilson p	3	0	0	0	0	1	.158
JCastro ss	1	0	0	0	0	1	.276
Totals	38	4	10	4	3	12

Chicago	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Grudzielanek 2b	4	0	0	0	0	1	.253
CPatterson cf	4	0	2	0	0	1	.281
SSosa rf	3	2	1	1	1	2	.268
Alou lf	2	2	1	2	2	1	.280
DeLee 1b	3	1	1	2	1	0	.300
ARamirez 3b	4	0	0	0	0	0	.320
REMartinez 3b	0	0	0	0	0	0	.251
Barrett c	3	0	1	0	1	0	.296
ASGonzalez ss	4	0	0	0	0	0	.228
Clement p	2	0	0	0	0	2	.105
Goodwin ph	1	0	0	0	0	0	.194
Remlinger p	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Wellemeyer p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Hawkins p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Totals	30	5	6	5	5	7

Cincinnati	200	200	000	-4	10	1
Chicago	002	002	10x	-5	6	1

E-Larkin (3), Grudzielanek (1). LOB-Cincinnati 10, Chicago 6. 2B-Freel (11), Casey (29). HR-SSosa (18), off Van Poppel; DeLee (16), off PWilson; LaRue (11), off Clement; WPena (14), off Clement; Alou (22), off PWilson. RBIs-DJimenez 2 (34), WPena (38), LaRue (33), SSosa (41), Alou 2 (57), DeLee 2 (56). SB-CPatterson (11).

Runners left in scoring position-Cincinnati 4 (Casey, DJimenez, Vander Wal 2); Chicago 2 (ARamirez 2).

Cincinnati	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Pwilson	6	4	4	4	5	6	100	3.71
Van Poppel L, 3-4	2	2	1	1	0	1	32	5.59

Chicago	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Clement	6	7	4	4	2	7	100	3.12
Remlinger	2/3	2	0	0	0	0	14	4.91
Wellemeyer W, 1-0	1 1/3	0	0	0	1	3	28	1.88
Hawkins S, 13	1	1	0	0	0	2	16	2.81

Balk-Clement.

T-2:56. A-38,761 (39,345).