(REUTERS) Cheered on by thousands of their well-traveled fans, Chicago won a postseason game outside of Wrigley Field for the first time since 1945 when Kerry Wood led the Cubs past the Atlanta Braves 4-2 Tuesday night in the opener of their NL division series.
Wood did it all — on the mound and at the plate. He allowed just two hits in 7 1-3 innings to the NL’s best offensive team. He drove in the go-ahead runs with a double off 21-game winner Russ Ortiz in the sixth.
“He wanted this badly,” said Dusty Baker, in his first year as Chicago’s manager. “A good pitcher turned into a great pitcher.”
Thousands of Cubs fans roared when Wood drove in two runs with a drive to the wall in left-center, breaking a 1-all tie.
“They’ve been following us all year,” Wood said. “It sounded like half and half.”
Offense aside, it was Wood’s work on the mound that really stood out. He completely throttled the high-scoring Braves, a team that had six players with 20 homers and four with 100 RBI during the regular season.
Wood struck out 11 in 7 1-3 innings. The only major slip-up came in the third, when Marcus Giles homered.
“To give up two hits in 7 1-3 innings to that team and also drive in the winning run, I’d say he was pretty locked in for this game,” said Joe Borowski, who struck out the side in the ninth for the save.
Trailing 4-1, Atlanta scored a run and knocked out Wood without getting a hit. A questionable call at first on a potential inning-ending double play allowed the run to score.
But Kyle Farnsworth retired Javy Lopez on a bases-loaded grounder to short.
“You know this can happen,” Braves closer John Smoltz said. “You can look at it like the glass is half-empty or half-full. We’ve won three out of four before.”
Lost in the hoopla over Chicago’s 95-year drought without a World Series title was this little nugget: The Cubs had lost eight straight postseason road games since Claude Passeau pitched a one-hitter to beat Detroit in Game 3 of 1945 World Series.
Of course, the Cubs lost that World Series, falling to the Tigers in seven games. They’ve lost 10 straight postseason series since winning their last World Series title in 1908.
The Cubs will go to Game 2 Wednesday night with a chance to take command of the best-of-five series. At worst, they’ll head to Chicago with a split at Turner Field and the next two games before their adoring Wrigley rowdies.
Actually, the Cubs must feel like they’re already at home. All those Chicago fans contributed to an overflow crowd of 52,043 at Turner Field, which had its first postseason sellout in three years.