THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007
SPORTS
9B
Chicago Cub Derrek Lee follows through on a first-inning RBI double off Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher lan Snell in baseball action in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. The Cubs beat the Pirates 7-1. The Pirates catcher is Ronny Paulino.
Gene J. Puskar/ASSOCIATED PRESS
》 MLIB
Cubs win-16 hours later
Four-run seventh inning key to victory in suspended game
BY ALAN ROBINSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
PITTSBURGH — The Chicago Cubs pulled off one of their best comeback victories of the season, even if they had to wait nearly 16 hours to celebrate it.
Alfonso Soriano hit his first horner for the Cubs and Cliff Floyd had a go-ahead, two-run shot during a four-run rally in the seventh inning on Tuesday night, and Chicago completed the suspended-game victory by finishing off the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-6 on Wednesday.
After a delay of 2 hours, 18 minutes, the game was suspended Tuesday with the Pirates about to bat in the seventh. After the game resumed, relivers Bob Howry, Will Ohman and Ryan Dempster gave up one run in three relief innings and Jacque Jones doubled and scored an insurance runs with some heads-up basenunning in the eighth. Rocky Cherry (!-1) got two outs in the sixth for the victory.
As Matt Murton hit the throw on a two-out single to third baseman Jose Bastista, Jones kept running and scored before first baseman Adam LaRoche realized Jones had not stopped at third.
Derrek Lee had four hits, including two doubles and a run-scoring single in the ninth off John Wasdin. Dempster got the final four outs for his fifth save in as many opportunities despite allowing Chris Duffy's RBI double in the ninth.
Earlier — in this case, more than half a day earlier — Jones, Soriano and Floyd all honored as the Cubs won their fourth in fifth games. The Pirates dropped their third in four games.
While the game lasted longer than the required five innings to be official, it was suspended because the Pirates had not yet batted in the seventh. Baseball's suspension rules were changed during the offseason to pick up play at the point where a game was stopped, rather than going back to the last completed inning — in this case, the sixth, with the Pirates up 5-2.
Soriano, who signed a $136 million contract with Chicago as a free agent in the offseason, was coming off what he called the worst month of his career. But he needed only one at bat in May to equal his RBI total in April — one — when he homered over the center-field wall on Tony Armas' third pitch.
Soriano and Murton each doubled in the seventh to drive in a run ahead of Floyd's 451-foot drive that bounced into the Allegheny River behind the right-field seats for his second homer of the season. The homer was more impressive because Floyd took his at-bat with a steady rain falling.
The Cubs withstood a rough outing from Ted Lilly, who gave up three runs in the first while allowing only one ball out of the infield. Lilly also wound up on his backside twice while fielding bunts.
Tony Armas began the game with an 11.57 ERA to Lilly's 2.18, but limited the Cubs to two runs in six innings — solo homers by Soriano on his third pitch of the game and Jones in the second. Arms left with a 5-2 lead, but the usually reliable Pirates bullpen couldn't hold it in the seventh.
Murton had a pinch-hit double off John Grabow, and Soriano doubled off loser Jonah Bayliss (2-2), who gave up extra-base hits to three consecutive batters. Bayliss did not allow any of his 10 inherited runners to score in April.
Ronny Paulino singled and scored on Jack Wilson's sacrifice fly in the Pirates' second and hit a solo homer in the fourth.
NASCAR
Lack of resources creates stress for Evernham team
BY MIKE HARRIS ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ray Evernham and his team have seen better times.
So far, though, this season has been a nightmare for Evernham and all three drivers.
A year ago, Evernham Motorsports was by far the best Dodge team in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series. It was on course to put Kasey Kahne in the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship with six victories and six poles, and have Elliott Sadler and Scott Riggs wind up in the top 22 in season points. The expectations for 2007 were much higher.
"It's easy to go back and look at all the things that went wrong," Evernham said.
After the first nine races, Sadler leads the trio at 15th in the standings, while Kahne is 31st and Riggs 36th. Each has produced one top 10 this season, and the only one of those coming since the season-opening Daytona 500 was Riggs' eighthplace run at Martinsville.
The first thing to go wrong came at Daytona, where all three of Evernham's crew chiefs were caught cheating in a post-qualifying inspection.
Kenny Francis, crew chief for Kahne, was suspended four races and the No. 9 car was docked 50 points. Rodney Childers, crew chief for Riggs, and Josh Browne, crew chief for Sadler, were suspended two races and each of their teams lost 25 points.
"We got off base early in the season, obviously, with the loss of the crew chiefs, and our resources aren't as deep as they are at other places to
overcome something like that," said Evernham, a former championship crew chief.
He also pointed out that building both the current cars and NASCAR's new Car of Tomorrow, which will run a total of 16 races this season, has pushed his team to the limit.
"Let's face it," he added, "Dodge has been cutting back resources so, and I'm not complaining, but we probably don't have as many resources to develop two programs at one time.
"We've told everybody time and time again that the big companies with a lot of resources are going to be able to get things done faster. And Rick Hendrick showed how strong his company is, the way he's dominating this year, to be able to have enough people to develop two cars at one time, and come out and be kicking butt in both of them."
The Hendrick team has won six of the nine races, including three by reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, one by Kyle Busch and the last two by Jeff Gordon, the fourtime champion and current points leader. Johnson, Busch and Gordon have swept the three COT races run thus far.
"That's just a tribute to Rick and his organization, but they also have a lot of resources." Everham said.
The slow start has been hard on his drivers, particularly a very frustrated Kahne, considered one of the bright young stars of the sport.
Evernham is hopeful that things are already beginning to turn around as they head for Richmond and another COT race this week. All three of his drivers were in the top 15 last Sunday at Talladega.
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MLB
Yankees pitcher injured during Tuesday victory
ARLINGTON, Texas — Phil Hughes was cruising along in his second major league start, recording out after out and moving closer to making baseball history.
The New York Yankees righthander threw one more pitch, reached down at his left leg and the excitement suddenly turned
Associated Press
The highly touted Hughes carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning Tuesday night before a hamstring injury knocked him out of the game. The team's prized prospect is expected to miss four to six weeks, a sour end to an otherwise encouraging night for New York, which beat Texas 10-1.
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