Myers beats Cubs with help from video review

[September 19, 2011]  CHICAGO (AP) -- Cubs manager Mike Quade made a pretty good show of objecting to a call in the eighth inning.

After Chicago's 3-2 loss to the Houston Astros on Sunday, he was humble in admitting he was wrong.

With Chicago down by a run and Starlin Castro on first, Carlos Pena had hit what would have been a go-ahead two-run homer but the umpires overturned the call after watching the video replay.

Pena was given a double and Castro was put on third base.

Quade ran onto the field to argue that Castro would have scored and was eventually ejected by third base umpire Marty Foster.

"Marty made it emphatic," Quade said. "He said he knew where (Castro) was. Marty's got the decision on whether it's a home run or not, and he's also got the decision on where the runner is. I don't understand how you can do that."

Quade added: "I guess both decisions were his and he felt when he turned around, after deciding it was a home run, he picked up Castro and decided he wouldn't have scored. I'm sure they got the technique correct, I just wonder how you can see both things."

Quade, who leads major league managers with seven ejections this year, admitted the umpires probably made the correct call because they had to be certain that Castro would have scored on the play.

"In retrospect, maybe they got this right today," Quade said. "I'm not positive would have scored. If that's the decision, then that's fine. You do what you have to do."

Cubs starter Ryan Dempster (10-13) overcame a shaky start to throw seven solid innings.

Dempster held the Astros to two runs and seven hits but lost his season-high fifth straight decision as the Cubs failed to complete their second home sweep of the Astros this season.

Coming off a 128-pitch, six-walk start in his previous outing, Dempster struggled through a 33-pitch first inning. Martinez hit an RBI single and Clint Barmes singled home two runs in Houston's three-run first. Dempster gave up three hits and walked two in the inning.

"The two walks were unacceptable, really," Dempster said. "They didn't hit the ball hard. I'm not taking anything away from them, that's part of the game. The two pitches they hit were both 0-2 pitches that were balls and they did a good job of putting the bat on the ball. It's unfortunate because those runs right there were what ended up costing us the game."

Astros starter Brett Myers (6-13) held Chicago to two runs -- one earned -- over 7 2-3 innings under a steady drizzle on a cool day at Wrigley Field. He improved to 13-3 lifetime against the Cubs.

Myers was in control until the eighth inning.

The inning started off in strange fashion when Darwin Barney's medium-depth fly to right was missed by Bogusevic and rolled to the warning track. Barney reached third standing up on a three-base error.

After Castro walked, pinch-hitter Aramis Ramirez hammered a drive to the right-field wall that Bogusevic tracked down with a nice running catch, scoring Barney.

Myers struck out Bryan LaHair before Pena hit a flyball to left that was originally ruled a two-run homer after appearing to strike the wall behind the basket in front of the fence and bounce back onto the field.

"It didn't really get bad for me until the last two hitters, the two lefties," Myers said. "Every ball the umpire was throwing back was soaking wet. That's part of the game. You have to get past that and pitch around it as best you can."

Byrd flied out against reliever Mark Melancon to end the inning

There was a rain delay of 1 hour, 7 minutes after the eighth.

Melancon got four outs for his 18th save, getting the last out before the delay and striking out the side in the ninth.

NOTES: Castro doubled to lead off Chicago's first, becoming the first Cubs shortstop to reach safely in 31 straight games since Woody English, who had streaks of 34 games in 1929 and a 32 games in 1930. ... DJ Lemahieu's second-inning error gave the Cubs 127 miscues on the season, one more than last season and the team's most since they had 139 errors in 1999. Entering Sunday's game, the Cubs have committed at least seven more errors than every other team in baseball. ... Casey Coleman will look to snap a five-game losing streak when he starts Chicago's series opener against Milwaukee's Chris Narveson on Monday night. Houston's J.A. Happ try to avoid moving into a tie for the NL lead with 16 losses when he starts Monday's series opener in Cincinnati.

[Associated Press]

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