June 12, 2018
There are many people who think baseball is boring. The games
move slow, not enough runs etc. However, regardless if you love the game, there
has been plenty of excitement in Chicago.
The Cubs coming off a successful road trip, albeit against bad competition, came home against a good Philadelphia Phillies team for three games.
The Cubs lost the first game, ending their four game win streak. It looked as
though they would lose game two. They coughed up a three run lead. Brandon
Morrow was brought on with the game tied and proceeded to give up his first homer
as a Cub, leaving them two behind. The Cubs mounted a comeback loading the bases
with one out. Zobrist hits a weak grounder to the pitcher for force out at home. Cub fans groan
because coming up is the under-achieving Jason Heyward hitting .129 against
left hand pitching. In what seemed like an eternity the count goes to 2-2.
Heyward hits the walk off grand slam. Talk about excitement. Wrigley goes
bananas.
This propels them to win 3 more in a row. This streak ends when
the great Joe Maddon pinch hits for Hendricks in the FIFTH with the Cubs only
one behind. Runners on first and second and no outs, you let your pitcher bunt.
La Stella may be a great pinch hitter, the operative word being pinch. Save him for
later, but Joe burns that option as he grounds into a double play. The next game
against the Brewers would turn out better. In a great pitching duel, Cubs score one in the eighth to tie the game with a single by Jason Heyward against one of the top left handed
relievers, Josh Hader. Not many teams are going to beat the Cubs in a battle of
bullpens. Cubs win an extra inning thriller.
One of the reasons the Cubs are a good team is great defense, just look at the Ian Happ game of three electrifying catches. Almora gets to everything in the center and Heyward makes hard catches look easy. The infield is strong
especially up the middle. The catcher picks people off and shuts down running
games. This is fun to watch.

More excitement at Fenway Park in Boston. What are the odds
that Dylan Covey would out-duel Chris Sale? The Sox manufactured one run and
that’s all they needed. Covey goes 6 innings, the improving relief shuts
down the best hitting team in baseball. Game 2 Carlos Rodon looked really
good and was getting better as the game wore on, which is a good omen. He could
possibly have gotten the win if not for porous defense committing 3 errors. Game 3
featured another strong performance by Lopez. Six strong innings of 1 run
baseball. Tim Anderson makes a heads up play scoring from second on a infield ground ball to give the Sox a 3-1 lead. In the
seventh inning, after a walk, Renteria puts in Nate Jones. He gets one out, walks a batter and hits another to load the bases. Maybe Renteria is
learning as he pulls Jones before he can do more damage. Jason Fry overcomes an
error and gets out of the jam and pitches the the 8th. With the Sox
leading 3-2, Daniel Palka, who is among the leaders in exit velocity, crushes a 2
run double in the 9th for insurance. Soria goes 3 up-3 down for
the save.
The Sox are playing much better, winning 4 out of 6 games
against teams with the best records in the National and American Leagues. The hitters for the most
part are struggling, and the defense is lousy. However, they are getting some
good starting pitching and with the exception of Nate Jones, the relief has improved
greatly. The additions of Fry, Rondon and Soria are the
primary reasons. They also have been getting good situational use from Volstad,
Avilan and newly called up Xavier Cedeno.
While this may make fans happy, but better things are up ahead. But, they probably
still lose 100 games.
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