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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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GAME LOG
CHICAGO (AP) -- Tom Glavine thought for sure the ball was going
to drop. No way Damon Buford hit it hard enough to put it over the
fence.
Glavine was wrong. Buford hit it plenty hard enough with the
wind blowing out, and his two-run homer helped the Chicago Cubs
beat the Atlanta Braves 5-3 on Thursday in a makeup game for
Wednesday's rainout.
|  | | Chicago's Eric Young, putting down a sucessful bunt in the fourth inning, finished 4-for-5 with three steals. |
"It was worth coming to the ball park on the day off," Cubs
manager Don Baylor said.
Glavine (7-2) and the Braves probably wish they could have just
stayed in bed. Glavine, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, gave up
four runs and six hits in five innings, his shortest outing of the
season.
At least there weren't that many people there to see it. Only
5,267 fans showed up, the smallest crowd at Wrigley since Sept. 23,
1986, when 4,684 showed up for a game against Montreal.
It also was the first time the Cubs drew fewer than 10,000 fans
since April 23, 1992, when 9,086 showed up to see a game against
Philadelphia.
"Glavine had good stuff, but he had a lot of pitches after five
innings," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "Still, one of them was
just a wind-blown home run. We forgot to cover second on another
one and we dropped the ball on another one at second.
"The linescore looks bad, but he could've got out of there with
two runs, tops."
Kevin Tapani (3-6) had a two-hitter going until the seventh
inning, when Andres Galarraga hit a three-run homer. Tapani gave up
three runs and five hits in seven innings.
Rick Aguilera got two outs for his 10th save.
"With the lineup they have, they've got guys on their bench
that are All-Stars," Tapani said. "Being able to limit them as I
did, I felt pretty good about it."
Glavine had lost only one start dating back to Sept. 22, going
10-1 in 14 games. But he didn't look as sharp as usual against the
Cubs. Though he struck out seven, one shy of his season high, he
walked five and threw a whopping 114 pitches in only five innings.
One of those walks cost him in the fourth inning. After Willie
Greene led off with a walk, Buford hit his two-run homer to left,
giving the Cubs a 4-0 lead.
"I didn't think Buford hit it hard enough to get out of the
ballpark," Glavine said. "I saw Reggie Sanders go after it and it
just kept going. I really only made one bad pitch, and that was to
Joe Girardi."
It was the ninth homer of the year for Buford, who is 8-for-11
in his career against Glavine.
"I don't have any secrets against him," Buford said. "I just
try to see the ball and hit the ball."
The Cubs got their first two runs in the third thanks to the one
pitch Glavine didn't like. Girardi hit an RBI double, and then
scored on Mark Grace's RBI single.
Girardi drove in another run in the sixth with an RBI double off
Kerry Ligtenberg.
"I've been getting behind in the count too much," Glavine
said. "It's not much more than a one-to-one ratio on balls and
strikes. I need to improve on that."
Tapani gave up a single to Brian Jordan in the second and
another to Rafael Furcal in the third, but he shut down Atlanta
from there. The Braves went down 1-2-3 until the seventh inning,
when Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones led off with singles.
That brought up Galarraga, who hit a 1-2 pitch to left-center to
cut Chicago's lead to 5-3. It was his third homer of the series,
and his 15th of the year.
But the Braves couldn't get anything else going, getting just
one more hit the rest of the game. The loss kept them from sweeping
the Cubs for the first time since July 28-30, 1997. Atlanta hasn't
swept a series at Wrigley Field since 1994.
"The way I look at today is we didn't come to play. We were all
in slow motion," Brian Jordan said. "It was just one of those
sluggy days where we didn't have anything going."
Game notes
Glavine has a 6.03 ERA in his last five starts. ... Grace
was back in the lineup for the first time since going on the
disabled list May 11 with a strained left hamstring. ... EricYoung
stole a base in his first three at-bats. He now has 20 this season.
... Tapani has worked at least seven innings in his last seven
starts.
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ALSO SEE
Baseball Scoreboard
Atlanta Clubhouse
Chicago Cubs Clubhouse
RECAPS
Minnesota 5
Toronto 1
Kansas City 13
Boston 11
Tampa Bay 2
Baltimore 1
Chicago Cubs 5
Atlanta 3
Montreal 9
Cincinnati 7
Arizona 4
St. Louis 0
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