WHEW! When Dexter Fowler was called out at the plate on an Anthony Rizzo single after a dicey slide and a too-close-to-overturn review, I’ll confess, I got pretty nervous that we were in for a disappointing bottom of the 11th. But the Royals walked Starlin Castro to load the bases, and David Ross came through with a blooper to left that scored Kris Bryant and walked the Cubs off.
Tsuyoshi Wada was once again very effective with the stretch of the game he’s entrusted to handle. It stretched the pen a bit today, given how deep the game went, but I still approve.
It was a great day to pitch, as the Cubs demonstrated again and again with hard, deep drives that easily would have been out on a no-wind day. As it was, the wind was howling in (and it was cold), so the game played low-scoring well into extras.
Thankfully, the Cubs’ arms took care of business on their end of things and gave the offense a chance to finally break through.