The frustrating “Groundhog Day”-like routine continued for Chicago Cubs starter Ryan Dempster on Tuesday. Dempster has allowed a total of four earned runs in his five 2012 outings but has yet to come away with a victory.

The veteran pitcher gave up just one run in seven innings of work in Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves before turning over a tie game to teammate Kerry Wood in the eighth inning. Wood walked two and gave up the go-ahead runs on Dan Uggla's two-run single. After the inning the Cubs reliever threw his glove in disgust.

“Coming off of the DL (Wood) has had a couple of rough outings, but he is as professional a teammate (as) I ever played with and you know things will turn around real soon,” Dempster said.

As usual, Wood, who came off of the disabled list on May 1, was there to answer questions after the loss but ended the media session after being asked about throwing his glove. The pitcher did not use the excuse of being rusty in his second appearance after recovering from shoulder soreness.

“Shoulder is great,” Wood said. “That’s the frustrating thing. I bounced back from the injection and the shoulder feels great and my stuff feels fine. It is all about results and I didn’t have any tonight.”

The last time Dempster won a game was in Washington on August 10, 2011. That was the day before Carlos Zambrano quit the team in Atlanta never to return. Dempster has five quality starts and a 1.02 ERA this season.

“That was another dominating performance.” Cubs manager Dale Sveum said. “It’s a shame. It’s almost May 10th and he doesn’t have a win with a (1.02) earned run average. I am glad we scored one so he didn’t take the loss.”

Dempster was his usual team-first self after the game.

“It’s OK. It will come,” Dempster said. “It’s just more of a bummer because we had a chance to win three in a row. We will just come back tomorrow and try and win another series.”