A fair amount of the play in the early innings of last night's 7-5 Cub loss to the Orioles, snapping their home winning streak at 14, resembled the bumbling spy Maxwell Smart (I haven't yet seen the new Get Smart movie, though I think I will -- I was a big fan of the TV series when it originally aired when I was a kid).

Some of the game recaps in the traditional media focused on a certain second baseman, who plays for the Orioles, who was the subject of at least 15,357 rumors on this site alone all winter. Granted, Brian Roberts had a good game last night, singling and tripling (including his 1000th career hit), and scoring two runs.

But the key play in this game was the misplay Eric Patterson made in left field when Luke Scott led off the sixth inning with a short pop fly into left-center. Now, usually that's the left fielder's ball -- any time an outfielder can get into range to catch a ball like that, you'd say he should, because he's got a better angle on it. In this case, Ryan Theriot was waving his right arm frantically, calling everyone else off -- the right thing to do when you've GOT IT!

Patterson bulled ahead anyway, chasing Theriot out of the way, and the ball dropped in between the two of them and Jim Edmonds, who had no shot at it. Scott was originally credited with a double, but later charitable (and correct, I think) scoring changed it to an error, making all three runs allowed by Michael Wuertz unearned (Jeremy Guthrie, the Orioles pitcher, would have made the last out of the inning by striking out).

That really was the game, because it made a 4-1 game into a 7-1 game, and if those runs don't score, Edmonds' three-run HR in the 7th and Aramis Ramirez' RBI single in the 8th would have won the game instead of just putting the Cubs back in it. They had a terrific chance to at least tie the game up in the 9th when they loaded the bases with nobody out, but Ronny Cedeno, Kosuke Fukudome and Henry Blanco all struck out and that was that.

Let's talk about Cedeno's K for a moment. He really didn't have a good at-bat -- he was set up well by O's closer George Sherrill, who put two fastballs by him and had Cedeno (he's got to give back ONEDEC! for a while, I think, having turned back around to the bad old Ronny) looking for a breaking ball outside -- and then Sherrill got him with a fastball again. So although Cedeno looked bad, give credit to Sherrill -- he does, after all, have 26 saves, the second-most in baseball.

Sean Marshall, I thought, threw well enough; he struck out seven and had his curve working quite well -- until he issued a walk in the 4th that helped lead to the first two runs, after which he started getting hit hard and often. The bullpen did a decent enough job of keeping the Cubs in the game -- as noted, the three runs off Wuertz shouldn't have scored.

You didn't really think this home winning streak would last forever, did you? That's a good long run, 14 games, and no streak like this one lasts forever. Credit to the Cubs for turning what looked, after six innings, to be a blowout loss, into a close game in the 8th and 9th that had the ballpark (and unlike a lot of midseason games, hardly anyone had left by the 9th) rocking, on an absolutely gorgeous, though coolish for late June, evening.

This is the first time the Orioles have visited Wrigley Field and there were a surprisingly large number of orange-clad Orioles fans in attendance. They were readily apparent not only for their bright-colored shirts, but they took part in what is a Baltimore tradition -- during the National Anthem, when the phrase near the end "Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave" is sung, they yell, very loudly, "O!" when "Oh" is sung. It was louder than you might have expected, mostly from the left field corner; the crowd last night, 41,537, was the sixth-largest crowd of the year.

That, and some pre-game discussion of the upcoming Peoria Chiefs game at Wrigley Field (to which, I learned from BCB reader BartlettBob, who sat with us last night, you cannot buy bleacher tickets at the box office -- only online), prompted me to go on an expedition to find out what the real seating capacity of Wrigley Field is. I remembered, years ago, there used to be posted signs, required by the Chicago Fire Department, of how many seats are in each area of the ballpark, including the bleachers. I figured if I added them all up, I could get pretty close, because there are so many different numbers online as to the current capacity. The Cubs website says 41,160, but that's been the same since last year; they haven't, it seems, added the 70 CBOE seats to that total. ESPN.com has -- sort of. They say 41,210. Ballparks.com, a pretty good authority, says 41,118.

So what do the official "ballpark figures" say? What they say is, the fire department and the Cubs have to get together and make a new sign. There's only one sign, now posted near the Cubs administrative office entrance. It's dated July 29, 2004 -- that's just about when the city came in to inspect, in connection with the falling concrete found earlier that month. The sign says the "fixed seating" capacity is 38,548 with "fixed seting including standing room" (yes, it's misspelled "seting") as 39,075.

Hey, Cubs: those numbers aren't even close to being right -- they don't include several of the premium seating sections nor the bleacher expansion. How about an accurate count?

Anyway, onward. The Cubs lost at home. It hadn't happened in five weeks. It was bound to happen sometime. We'll get 'em tonight. Final question for all of you: I noticed a third overflow thread was posted. Do you all think I need to post three overflow threads?

Jim Edmonds' HR in the 7th brings the Cubs back to within 7-4

Orioles submariner Chad Bradford pitching to Derrek Lee in the 8th; his hand nearly touches the ground when he throws.

Should be seeing Kerry Wood soon. (Or, hopefully not: maybe the Cubs are winning a blowout!)

Beat them Birds!

Finally! A game day with no rain in the forecast.

In this, the 12th year of interleague play, the Orioles finally complete the AL circuit of Wrigley Field -- up to tonight, they are the only AL team to have not played at Wrigley since interleague play began. And considering how many former Cubs have traipsed through Baltimore in the last few years, with the recent DFA of Freddie Bynum, the number of ex-Cubs on the Orioles' active 25-man roster is... zero. The closest to an ex-Cub they have is Alex Cintron, who was in spring training with the Cubs this year, and who replaced Bynum as their starting SS. (Although there are many Orioles who have been rumored to be coming to the Cubs in recent years, from Jay Payton to Aubrey Huff to ... well, you know who, the second baseman.)

Just the fact that Freddie Bynum was Baltimore's starting SS ought to tell you a lot, although they are still hanging around the fringes of the AL wild-card race (5.5 games behind as of today). However, they have done this before in recent years, most notably in 2002, when they were 63-63 on August 23 and went 4-32 the rest of the way. (No, that's not a misprint. They lost 10 straight, won one, lost 8 more in a row, won one, lost one, won one, then finished the 2002 season with an 11-game losing streak. Think about that the next time you think the Cubs are going through a tough stretch.)

"I'm really not looking for that," MacPhail said about the unremitting media spotlight, which he knows will likely find him. "I've thought about it, and I would try to lay low as much as I can, but obviously, you're going to face more of an issue if you're going to duck the media. [The Cubs] have the White Sox on both ends of us, so it should be fairly quiet."

OK, Andy, you got a deal. That's the last mention I'll make of him during this series.

Today's Starting Pitchers

S. Marshall Cubs vs. J. Guthrie Orioles 0-0 W-L 3-7 4.15 ERA 3.51 5 SO 68 7 BB 30 2 HR 13 vs. Bal -- vs. Cubs

Neither of these pitchers has ever faced tonight's opponent. Jeremy Guthrie has one career relief appearance against the Cubs, a poor two-inning stint when he was with Cleveland in this June 19, 2006 game, one of the few the Cubs actually played well that year. Guthrie's decent ERA and poor W-L record suggests low run support, and his gamelogs bear that out: the Orioles have scored only 55 runs in his 16 starts, 3.44 per game. Guthrie's also allowed 13 HR in those 16 starts. The Cubs have had their HR shoes on lately -- light him up!

Oddly, the only current Oriole Sean Marshall has faced is a pitcher, Lance Cormier; that was June 8, 2007, when Cormier started a game for Atlanta against Marshall and the Cubs.

The game's on MASN, the Baltimore/Washington cable channel, so it should be on EI; it's also on WGN and at MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday (2007 version)

MLB.com Gameday (2008 version)

Baseball-reference.com game preview

Today's overflow comment thread will post at 7:30 pm and 8:45 pm CT.

And I ask of you again: please, PLEASE try to be nice to each other in the game thread. We are all passionate about baseball and the Cubs and have strong opinions. But we don't have to be nasty to each other. Thanks.

Discuss amongst yourselves.