OSS: Jason Hammel cruises to a Cubs victory
Three up
1. Hammel was fantastic today, striking out eleven batters with no walks in 6.2 innings. Extra kudos for working so deep into the game as all the bullpen members that Maddon actually likes to use pitched the day before.
2. Starlin Castro made an incredible catch to rob Dee Gordon of a likely bloop double and hit an absolute blast of a HR in the eighth inning. He’s still struggling in general, but it’s encouraging to see these flashes pop up.
3. The Cubs top four batters got to Urena early, scoring two runs and making it look like they were going to chase him early. Urena eventually settled down, but given the Marlins offense outside of Stanton those were all the runs the Cubs would have needed.
Three down
1. As alluded to in Castro’s struggles above, he made a great play on a tough flare but botched a routine grounder, and did not have many great PAs before that HR. I’m glad he’s been moved down in the lineup, and hope he gets past this slump.
2. I usually like watching Montero hit, but he was batting like he had dinner reservations tonight. His throwing error also led to the Marlins only run, in a very un-Stanton-like fashion.
3. Mike Baxter got his first hit as a Cub, which reminded me that Mike Baxter is still on this team 😐
Next game
Kyle Hendricks vs Brad Hand, 6:10 PM CT. I might have missed it while releasing the hounds, but I think Len missed Doug Fister when he was looking for hand-related name puns while hyping this game.