Hittin' 'Em Where They Ain't | A Chicago Cubs Franchise Report (MLB 14 | PS4)

[WaitTilNextYear]

It's Clobberin' Time! Cubs Offense Gives it to Snakes in 3-Game Sweep




Game 35 Rapid Reax: CHC 7, ARZ 3

It was just what the doctor ordered for an anemic Cubs offense--crooked numbers. The Chicago baseball Cubs struck for 2 in the 2nd and 5 in 3rd off a very shaky, wild Randall Delgado. The Cubs plated two on a Javier Baez RBI double and passed ball in the 2nd. In the 5th, the Cubs feasted to the tune of a Chris Coghlan double, who then advanced to 3rd on a wild pitch, followed by an Arismendy Alcantara full count BB, an Anthony Rizzo sac fly, a Starlin Castro RBI triple, a Jorge Soler BB, a Luis Valbuena BB, a Baez full count RBI BB, and a Welington Castillo 2 RBI double with Baez thrown out at home to cap it off.

Cubs starter Edwin Jackson was not incredibly sharp, but keeps his resurgent season going with a team high 5th win. The Snakes' staff was feeling mighty generous and issued a whopping 9 free passes to a patient Cubs lineup.





Game 36 Rapid Reax: CHC 8, ARZ 6

Starlin Castro had himself a ballgame and is starting to sizzle. Castro got the party started with a 3-run homer in the 1st off Wade Miley, and came back for seconds with a go-ahead 2-run double in the 5th to save a slumping Max Scherzer's bacon.

Jorge Soler also hit a key 2-run homer in 5th.

The Snakes capitalized on poor Cubs defense and a 3rd inning error (scored as a single) on Anthony Rizzo while charging a Wade Miley bunt led to a 5-run inning. 6 straight D'Backs reached safely during the rally.

Didi Gregorius and Ender Inciarte have been some pesky cork soakers in this series thus far. The two combined to go 5-for-10 in the game and caused a number of headaches for the Cubs staff.





Game 37 Rapid Reax: CHC 6, ARZ 3

The only damage inflicted by the D'Backs came on Paul Goldschmidt homers in the 1st and 9th innings--his 10th and 11th of the season. This win for the Cubs resulted in a clean sweep of the D'Backs, the club with the best record in baseball before arriving at Wrigley. It was the first sweep of 2015 for the Cubbies.

Chicago's scoring commenced with a Starlin Castro RBI single in the 1st followed by a Jorge Soler RBI single. Another Cub run was scored on a Castro GIDP in the 3rd. Arismendy Alcantara recorded an RBI single in 5th to go with an Anthony Rizzo RBI groundout in the 5th.

The Cubs continued to pressure as starter Jake Arrieta got in on the action with an RBI groundout in 6th. In addition, Arrieta walked twice to start innings and scored both times.

Hector Rondon had to pitch out of trouble for a change in the 9th, but notched his 15th save in 15 chances and has yet to be scored upon all season. Arrieta was solid through 7 IP after an early Goldschmidt homer. Arrieta made 108 pitches and tied Edwin Jackson for the team lead with 5 wins. The Snakes were a woeful 1-for-16 on Arrieta fastballs and will leave Chicago with rattle tucked firmly between their legs.

[Purplepower_NC]

Myself a Reds fan….but am very impressed by what you have done with the Cubs. Also really enjoy following your franchise. Keep up the outstanding work.

[Willard76]

Love the Monty Python references

[redsrulenc]

Split series against the Reds? Lucky dog..

[WaitTilNextYear]

[WaitTilNextYear]

Keep on Pushin': Straight Ahead




Game 38 Rapid Reax: CHC 6, LAD 5

Arismendy Alcantara ripped a clutch 2-out 2-run go ahead homer off a Paco Rodriguez cutter in the bottom of the 8th for the win. It could've ended much worse as Chris Denorfia hit a pinch hit triple with 1 out and Chris Coghlan could not drive him in. But, Mendolo was there to clean up the mess as part of a stat-stuffing performance.

A Luis Valbuena error led to the Dodgers 1st runs in the 4th. The Dodgers got a little bit of thunder out of the bats of Hanley Ramirez and Juan Uribe on later inning solo HRs.

Hector Rondon stayed perfect while striking out Adrian Gonzalez and Andre Ethier for his 16th save.

Josh Beckett was knocked out literally on a Valbo comebacker and may miss his next start.





Game 39 Rapid Reax: CHC 4, LAD 2

The Cubs got out to early lead against Clayton Kershaw on an Anthony Rizzo sac fly in the 1st.

Tsuyoshi Wada was decent in his 2nd MLB start of the year, but his very shaky control (5 BBs) allowed the Dodgers to take 2-1 lead by the 4th inning, aided by Soler's boner in RF. It could've been much worse at that point, too, but Wada wriggled out of a 3rd inning, bases loaded 0 out scenario while only giving up a single run on a Yasiel Puig GIDP.

After a few near misses, the Cubs finally broke through to re-take the lead in the 6th. Javier Baez missed the basket in left-center by mere inches, but Welington Castillo followed up by smacking a double--his 2nd of the game--to knock in Arismendy Alcantara and Starlin Castro to go ahead 3-2. Jorge Soler atoned for his boner by adding a 406-foot bomb off JP Howell in the 9th for a wee bit of insurance.

The Cubs defense made things interesting in the 9th, when Hector Rondon easily got 2 outs and then got AJ Ellis to tap weakly to 1B only to see Rizzo butcher the play. Pinch hitter Alex Guerrero walked, but after a mound visit from Curt Young, Rondon retired Matt Kemp on a groundout to 2nd to go 17 for 17 in saves and stretch the Cubs' roll to 5 games.

Wada had a better result but is still struggling to throw strikes (49% today) and is likely not long for the majors with starts like these. Kershaw threw 97 pitches (71% strikes). Cubs feasted on offspeed with 3-for-7 on SL/CB/CH in inflicting Kersh's 1st loss of the season.





Game 40 Rapid Reax: CHC 4, LAD 0

Edwin Jackson and the Cubs staff was very solid, but it was an ugly performance from the defense, which turned 3 separate routine plays into errors. Two came on easy tappers back to to pitchers and one was on an awful throw by Logan Watkins to first on what was a routine grounder. Jose Lobaton also threw a ball into center field on a Matt Kemp steal attempt only to be picked up by Arismendy Alcantara gunning Kemp out trying to dig for 3rd.

Lobaton, however, came through in a 1-0 ballgame with a clutch 2-out, 2-run double in the 6th as one of his 3 hits on the day. Starlin Castro continued his torrid hitting with a 3-hit game as well. Castro has now yanked his average up nearly 70 points over the past 2 weeks.

Heck with aiming for a Cy Young award, Edwin Jackson is trying to put his hat in the ring for the Hank Aaron. Jackson had another sterling day at the plate with a hit and a BB to raise his average to .466.

Pedro Strop struck out the side in the 9th to finish off the home sweep while extending the winning streak to 6 games. It was the first shutout of a Cubs opponent since a 2-0 context against the Brewers on April 22nd. The Cubs are a season high 2 games over .500 at 21-19 and are playing baseball like some trill OGs right now.

[Deuce2223]

Caught up. On vacation in Portland and the Oregon Coast for the next 5 days, so I am ready for some more reading material.

Looks like maybe you need to find away to work Edwin into the batting lineup more often.

Also nice to see Cano having a great season so far.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Cubs Settle for 2 of 3 in House that Piazza Built




Game 41 Rapid Reax: CHC 5, NYM 3

Cubs righthander Max Scherzer started off shaky while loading the bases in 1st (BB, single, throwing error by Starlin Castro), but stuck his way out of it.

Mets hurler Matt Harvey did not give up a hit until the 5th inning, but the Cubs promptly loaded the bases with nobody out only to see star-crossed backstop Welington Castillo somehow fly out into a double play on a ball hit to the nifty Juan Lagares in center. The ball was hit far too shallow to score Jorge Soler from 3B, but Gary Pettis waved him anyway and Soler was gunned out. The End.

Not really though.

The Cubs got back at it in the 6th with a leadoff Chris Coghlan BB and an Arismendy Alcantara sac bunt. Anthony Rizzo proceeded to take Harvey out of the park and over the big apple prop in dead center for a go ahead 2-run dinger. Starlin Castro followed up like a good cleanup hitter with a back-to-back HR to straightaway left. Castro homered again in the 8th to make it 5-2.

Scherzer was chased in the 8th on a 1-out Wilmer Flores solo HR, but the Cubs bullpen held the game and Hector Rondon continued his untouchable run with his 18th save in as many chances.





Game 42 Rapid Reax: CHC 10, NYM 3

Jake Arrieta was all over the place like a drunken uncle at a sorority house during rush week with 6 BBs, but the Mets couldn't capitalize until the 6th inning. By then, the rout was already on.

The Cubs took advantage of Zack Wheeler walking the bases loaded in the 3rd inning before Anthony Rizzo barely cleared the left field fence for a granny and what was actually the Cubs 1st hit of the game. Javier Baez added gasoline to the Mets dumpster fire of a season with a missile of a solo homer in the 4th and a 3-run job in the 5th. Baez has finally reached the Mendoza line.

The Cubs and Mets traded runs in the 8th and 9th, but the Cubs came away with their 8th straight victory. The Mets merely came away with sorrow and then more sorrow.

Arrieta put in a full day at the office with 122 pitches (52% strikes). A win is a win.





Game 43 Rapid Reax: NYM 9, CHC 3

The Mets staved off the sweep with a pair of 4-run innings--most of which featured sketchy umpiring and seeing-eye-single-nation. In fact, the Mets didn't get a hit that left the infield on a fly until a Cesar Puello triple in the 7th.

Here's how the perpetrating innings went down:

Bottom 2nd
-Lucas Duda grounded to right for a single
-A.J. Pierzynski grounded to center for a single
-Puello walked on 3-2 count
-Wilmer Flores gounded and deflected off 2B Javier Baez for single (tapper mishandled), 1 run scores
-Andrew Brown grounded and deflected off SS Starlin Castro for single (should've been ruled an error), 1 run scores
-Jacob deGrom sac fly to RF
-Daniel Murphy grounded to RF for a single, 2 runs score

Bottom 7th
-David Wright grounded to RF for a single
-Duda grounded to CF for a single
-Pierzynski grounded to CF for a single, 1 run scores
-Puello tripled to RF, 2 runs score
-Flores RBI groundout to SS

Kyle Hendricks had a frustrating game as he clearly did something to upset the BABIP gods. Jerry Hillsdale's strike zone is a joke, but Hendricks was not good once again. There were no fewer than 10 Cubs pitches that clipped some part of the strike zone, but were called balls. Thanks, blue!

Anthony Rizzo homered in both of his 1st 2 ABs and narrowly missed another in his 3rd AB, but settled for a double to right-center that fell in about 10 feet shy of the wall. Rizzo went ape on the Mets with 4 homers and 9 RBI on 7-for-12 batting in the 3-game set. The Cubs will have to settle with a series win over the lowly Mets, even though their season-high winning streak was snapped at 8 games.