(Now with correct score!)
OSS: The wind was the true winner of this game.
Three up:
1. The wind was certainly helping all the pitchers today, but members of the Cubs pen not named Travis Wood came through today. Wood aside, they pitched 5 1/3 innings of shutout ball, allowing just one hit, two walks, and striking out seven. Grimm had the best performance, striking out three out of his four batters, but it was also nice to see Strop and Rondon look more like their old selves than the shaky versions we’ve seen over the past week. Strop in particular was hanging clown shoes on opposing batters.
2. Chris Coghlan had a great day at the plate, going 3-4 and just missing out on a perfect day at the plate if there were a merely average left fielder out there.
3. Anthony Rizzo nearly won the game for the Cubs in the ninth with a one-out triple. The Cubs tried to safety squeeze to get him in with David Ross, but no such luck. Usually I’m anti bunt, but with the way the wind was howling in today I don’t really mind it. Ross came through his next time around in a similar situation with a blooper just over the shortstop for the game winner.
Three down:
1. A rough day for Jorge Soler, who went 0-4 with three strikeouts, including one to end the ninth stranding Rizzo. At least we can’t blame the face mask this time.
2. Wood and Wada combined to allow the only Royals run of the day. I’m not wild about bringing in guys who are used to starting in the middle of innings, though you’d think that with weather like today’s it’s the best time to use Wood, given how homer prone he’s been this year.
3. I’ve complained in the past about Maddon’s aggressiveness in using his whole roster in close games, but I’m starting to come around to how he’s been doing it. Still, that was a lot of pitching changes for a tie game with offense severely depressed. I guess the plan was to just pitch Jackson until his arm fell off if it came to it.