Marlins End Six-Year World Series Drought

By Tom Renbarger

Florida's 9-6 win in Wrigley Field Wednesday night extended the Cubs streak of missing the World Series another year. And while it will no doubt be fashionable to pin the loss on The Curse of the Goat and a hapless fan sitting in the front row down the left field line, I think it's fair to say that in the end, the Marlins simply made more plays than the Cubs in winning the final two contests in Wrigley.

In Game 6, the Cubs pushed one run across in the first, with a chance for more, with runners on first and second and one out, but Aramis Ramirez and Randall Simon hit a pair of liners fairly sharp but right at outfielders. Simon's fly out came on the first pitch, and in his second at-bat he grounded into a double play with runners on first and second and none out, again on the first pitch. Sometimes the hacks work out for you, and sometimes they don't.

After Carl Pavano settled down, he locked into a pitcher's duel with Mark Prior, which lasted until the Cubs finally managed to plate another run in the sixth, chasing Pavano after 5 2/3. The Cubs scored a third run in the seventh, and with Prior seemingly on cruise-control, everything looked good for the Cubs to end their nearly six-decade World Series drought.

We all know how this turned out, and we don't need to rehash it in too great of detail, but I would like to make a couple of observations. First off, Pierre's ground ball double doesn't happen if the Cubs are guarding the line. I don't know, three run lead in the eighth, where do *you* put *your* third baseman? Second of all, Sammy air mails the cutoff man on Conine's tie-breaking sac fly, allowing Lowell to move up to second, setting up the second intentional walk, right before Mike Mordecai's game-breaking double off the ivy. Third, do you really just give light-hitting Alex Gonzalez a free pass with runners on second and third and two out? Maybe you do, and maybe you don't want any piece of the Farnsworth-Gonzalez matchup, but you know that there's going to be a pinch-hitter to try to put away the game, so why not go after the lightweight? Probably because if the lightweight beats you, you'll get asked why you didn't walk him. We'll give Dusty a pass on that, but not on the guarding the line thing and we'll also keep him on the hook for failing to realize that after 230-something innings, Prior might not be as sharp with pitches 110-120 as he had been earlier in the season.

Then to Game 7, where Kerry Wood showed right away that the struggles he had in Game 3 would be with him again. Miguel Cabrera's three-run jack was just a piece of superior hitting; how may guys in the bigs could park the pitch he hit his homer on? But the 0-2 meatball to Pierre for his leadoff triple and losing Pudge after getting ahead were a portent for things to come. Wood amended matters with his magnificent second-inning at-bat that culminated in his game-tying homer, and Moises Alou had Cubs fans thinking they'd actually pull it out with his go-ahead two-run shot, but the lead was given back as Wood battled wildness and started to run out of gas in the fifth and sixth. Whither Carlos Zambrano I wondered. Maybe not for the fifth, though some reliever probably should have come in, but once Wood struggles through the fifth, you'd think Zambrano would be a serious option in the sixth. Instead, Josh Beckett carried the day from the Marlins pen, just three days removed from his dominant Game 5 performance, slamming the door on the Cubs chances from the fifth through the eighth, as the Marlins first tied the game and then went ahead and then padded their lead on a bloop two-run double by Gonzalez in the seventh.

The Marlins also threw around some serious leather, especially Cabrera in right. Mike Lowell had a nice diving stop and Pierre made a couple of nice catches on the warning track, but those weren't terribly surprising. In addition to their three homers, the Cubs flashed a lot of warning track power in this game. One wonders what might have been had the game been played in conditions similar to Games 1 and 2. The Cubs and their fans will have a long winter to meditate on that, but with a strong young rotation, no doubt hope will spring eternal for them. The Marlins will be too busy in the immediate future for such introspection, but their own young guns and pesky lineup may very well mean that this playoff matchup may be replayed a number of times in the years to come.