By John Erardi
Enquirer staff writer
It seems like a decade ago, but it's only been two months since the kind of excitement in Great American Ball Park on Sunday was there for the home team.
Now, it is there for the opposing team - if it is in a tight pennant race, not too far from home and very much the darlings of cable-TV watchers, all of which the Chicago Cubs are.
The Cubs skewered the Reds 5-1 before 41,649 fans, most of them dressed in blue and all but a few of them not singing "Root, root, root for the CUB-BIES!" during "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the seventh-inning stretch.
"It was a great atmosphere, just like we used to have here for us not too long ago," said starter Paul Wilson, who pitched well (eight innings, five hits, one run).
"As a professional, it's what you play for, to play in games with a purpose."
What few Reds fans were there saw a terrific game through the first eight innings.
With the two teams locked in a pitchers' duel (Wilson vs. the Cubs' Glendon Rusch), Cincinnati scored first in the seventh inning on a leadoff double by Felipe Lopez and a RBI single by Adam Dunn.
Wilson was pitching as though that one run just might be enough, especially in the top of the eighth inning, when Reds shortstop Felipe Lopez ranged deep and almost behind second base to spear a groundball from Sammy Sosa, and then pirouetted to make a hard, strong throw to first base for the out.
"When you're getting plays like that, you know that all you have to do is keep your sinkerball down," Wilson said. "It was a great, great play."
It was Wilson's 93rd pitch of the game, but he appeared fine. But after Todd Walker singled up the middle and Michael Barrett doubled into the left-field corner, sending pinch-runner Calvin Murray to third, the Reds got their signals crossed.
On a medium-depth flyball to left-center, left fielder Dunn and center fielder Wily Mo Pena bumped. Dunn made the catch, but his throw home was wide.
"With all those people yelling, we couldn't hear one another," Pena said. "We were both calling for it. The (taller guy) got it. There was nothing we could do about it, as loud as it was."
Reds manager Dave Miley noted that Pena had the better angle and the better arm for that play, but there is no guarantee it would have been enough.
After that, things just unraveled for the Reds.
The game turned on a bad call at first base by umpire Jim Reynolds to start the ninth inning with the game tied.
The Cubs' Neifi Perez had grounded to third base, and Ryan Freel threw wide of first base. The replay showed that first baseman Sean Casey kept his foot on the bag, and that he tagged Perez before Perez's foot hit the bat.
But Reynolds disagreed, saying Perez reached on Freel's throwing error.
Perez said Casey missed him with the tag, but that's not what the replay showed. And Casey's foot had been on the bag when the ball hit his glove, anyway.
"It was a huge call in the game," said Reds manager Dave Miley, who was ejected for the third time this season for arguing the call. "It went downhill from there. The first out of any inning is a big out, and it (can make) all the difference."
Later in the ninth, the Cubs hit a pair of two-run doubles to the left-center gap off reliever Danny Graves to put the game out of reach.
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E-mail jerardi@enquirer.com
Cubs 5, Reds 1
