OSS: Cubs make a comeback, but then realize it was ahead of schedule.
Three up
1. Kyle Schwarber hit a two run bomb in the fourth inning to pull the lead within one. It’s been great seeing him crush the ball, especially with Bryant scuffling a bit of late. It was the second highest WPA play of the game for either team, second to…
2. Rizzo’s solo shot two batters later to tie the game. I only caught the first few innings of the game, but to hear Cubs twitter after the first inning the Cubs were doomed and Haren is going to give up eight runs every start, never mind their six game winning streak. Chill, people.
3. It was mentioned in the last thread’s comments, but it’s been nice/strange to see Ramirez on a good team again. He’s always been one of my favorite players, though it doesn’t make my ‘top 8 Cubs of my lifetime list’ suggested by wv23, since that list just has Sosa, Zambrano, and three clones of each of them.
Three down
1. Not so great of a debut by Dan Haren, not that I’m expecting much more than competent fifth starter work out of him. Hopefully the Cubs make sure not to pitch him and Hendricks back to back or they’ll have to recalibrate their radar guns once a week.
2. Coghlan was the biggest fun-sucker of the game, grounding out with the bases loaded in a tie game in the sixth.
3. Russell was the only Cubs player with an oh-fer (including walks) on the day, and while he picked up a garbage time groundout RBI in the ninth it actually significantly decreased the Cubs win probability due to the out.
Next up
Chris Heston vs Jason Hammel, 7:05 PM CT