Same story for Cubs
Sveum frustrated by team’s inability against southpaws
The Cubs’ 7-4 loss Sunday night to the Boston Red Sox at Wrigley Field looked very much like the 43 others so far this season: too little clutch hitting, too little clutch relief pitching and no effect on an opposing left-handed starter.
‘‘The thing that’s going on all year long is we get into close ballgames and something breaks down,’’ manger Dale Sveum said. ‘‘We can’t make a pitch to hold them or we can’t get a hit when we need it.
‘‘We need to get better at somebody coming up with a big hit when it counts, not when we’re four or five runs down.’’
His team trailed 7-3 in the ninth before loading the bases against closer Alfredo Aceves and scoring once on a sacrifice fly. But that said as much about the struggles the Red Sox are having this season.
So did the combined four errors, two by each team, leading to an unearned run for the Cubs and two for the Red Sox.
More frustrating for Sveum was his team’s continued inability to solve a left-handed starter, this time Franklin Morales, who was making an emergency start for the injured Josh Beckett.
Morales worked only five innings and left with the Red Sox leading 3-2, but he struck out a career-high nine and gave up only two runs and four hits.
‘‘It’s the same story with left-handed pitching,’’ Sveum said as his team’s record against southpaw starters fell to 3-15. ‘‘We were getting beat consistently on fastballs. We swung at pitches out of the zone as well as not doing anything with pitches in the zone.’’
One Cub who did have success was shortstop Starlin Castro, whose 3-for-4 game fell a home run short of the cycle. He tripled home a run in the first, doubled home one in the third and singled in the sixth to extend an inning that produced an unearned run.
Castro also committed his 12th error of the season in the eighth, when the Red Sox scored one of their unearned runs.
‘‘I’m not going to beat him down for a ball that was in between hops,’’ Sveum said. ‘‘The guy can swing the bat, and he’s played really good defense.’’
Castro and Atlanta Braves second baseman Dan Uggla are the only National League players to play in every game for their team.
For Castro, 22, playing every day is no issue.
‘‘I like to play every day,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t feel I need a day off. Just keep playing.’’
Sveum has been reluctant to sit him, despite some defensive lapses, because of his greater value.
‘‘I haven’t had a conversation with him, but it’s a possibility,’’ Sveum said of resting Castro. ‘‘But he’s such a huge asset on the field for us.’’
His three-hit game broke a slump that had seen him go 2-for-21 in the first five games of the homestand.
Castro, who trailed the Colorado Rockies’ Troy Tulowitzki and the St. Louis Cardinals’ Rafael Furcal in the latest All-Star vote totals, knows that could hurt his hopes of returning to the NL squad.
‘‘We have two or three weeks for us to come back and play well — this week against the White Sox and then to Arizona and then a homestand,’’ Castro said. ‘‘I have to prepare and do my work because I want to make the All Star team again.’’