ATLANTA - The fierce competition between Cubs starters isn't limited to trying to outdo each other on the mound.
The serious action usually can be found in a near-empty Wrigley Field a few hours before selected home games, when they line up at the batting cage and take turns trying to jack balls onto Waveland Avenue during pitchers' batting practice sessions.
After Kerry Wood chopped down Atlanta with both his bat and his arm Tuesday in the Cubs' 4-2 victory in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, look for Carlos Zambrano and Mark Prior to take a few more pregame cuts in the cage before their next starts.
Wood's two-out, two-run double off Russ Ortiz snapped a 1-1 tie in the sixth inning, and his sterling pitching made those runs stand up to allow the Cubs to draw first blood in the series.
Zambrano faces Mike Hampton in Game 2 of the five-game series Wednesday night.
Wood allowed two runs on two hits over 71/3 innings, striking out 11 and walking five as several thousand Cubs fans in the crowd of 53,043 chanted "Ker-ry, Ker-ry" all night long. Wood also went 2-for-4 at the plate, finishing with as many hits as he gave up in his first career postseason victory. Joe Borowski pitched a scoreless ninth to seal the deal, striking out three of the four batters he faced for the save.
By shocking the Braves in opener, the Cubs took a lead in a postseason series for the first time since 1984, when they led San Diego 2-0 in the best-of-five National League Championship Series. It was also their first postseason victory on the road since Oct. 5, 1945, when they beat Detroit 3-0 in Game 3 of the World Series.
They had gone 0-8 since, losing the final three games in San Diego in '84, going 0-3 in Candlestick Park in a 4-1 loss to San Francisco in the 1989 NLCS and losing the first two games in Turner Field when Atlanta swept them in the '98 division series.
Wood's dazzling performance came while facing a pitcher who had seven more regular-season victories than him and figures to finish among the leaders in the final balloting for the National League Cy Young Award.
But Ortiz also was the beneficiary of the most powerful lineup in baseball; the Braves averaged 6.49 runs per nine innings with him on the mound, the second-best run support for NL pitchers. Wood, meanwhile, finished with only 14 victories in 32 starts but had either a loss or a no-decision in eight starts in which he allowed two or fewer runs.
After Wood breezed through the first two innings without allowing a hit, Marcus Giles poked a two-out, home run into the left-field bleachers to give the Braves a 1-0 lead in the third. It has been well-noted that Prior took off after his July 11 base-running collision with Giles, winning 10-of-11 starts since coming off the disabled list. But Giles also went into high gear and hit .355 the rest of the season after missing three games with a concussion from the collision.
The Cubs failed to score despite loading the bases with no outs in the fourth but managed to load them up again with no outs in the sixth, this time producing better results. After Randall Simon struck out while pinch-hitting for Alex Gonzalez, Paul Bako followed with a potential double-play grounder to first.
But first baseman Robert Fick dropped the ball while pulling his mitt up, allowing the tying run to score and snapping Ortiz's 19-inning scoreless streak. With two outs, Wood cranked a 1-0 pitch into the gap in left-center, bringing home Ramirez and Karros to make it 3-1. Left-hander Ray King replaced Ortiz and immediately gave up a bloop single to Kenny Lofton that scored Wood to give the Cubs a three-run lead.
After serving up Giles' homer in the third, Wood would not allow another hit until Javy Lopez singled with one out in the seventh. He finally tired in the eighth after Matt Franco reached on a wild pitch on strike three leading off. Manager Dusty Baker yanked Wood at the 124-pitch mark after he issued one-out walks to Mark DeRosa and Gary Sheffield to load the bases.
Chipper Jones beat out a potential double-play grounder off Mike Remlinger to score a run, though replays indicated Jones was out by a step at first. Kyle Farnsworth walked Andruw Jones to load the bases before getting Lopez to ground into an inning-ending force.
©2003, Chicago Tribune.
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