NEWSLETTER
Well, that was a dud.
The New York Mets just evened up this series against the Cubs with a 5-4 win at Wrigley Field, which makes me nervous about the Cubs chances to win this series altogether (especially with Jacob deGrom looming on Sunday). I know four-game series are never easy to win no matter what, but the Cubs are at home and the Mets aren’t that great. Winning today would have been huge, but they didn’t make that happen. Let’s just say tomorrow’s game is that much more important now.
As for the game, itself, well, the Cubs offense did just enough (6 hits, 2BB, 4 runs, 2B, HR) to avoid the brunt of blame, but they certainly could’ve done more. Hell, Yu Darvish is the only player with multiple hits today, so, yeah … they didn’t exactly do their jobs to the fullest.
But at the same time Darvish delivered yet another one of “those” starts. If you’ve been watching this year, you know exactly what I mean. In total, his 6.0 innings and 4 earned runs don’t look terrible – and there was obviously some flukiness (to go along with a couple of meatballs that were absolutely crushed) – but it’s getting old. Darvish was legitimately excellent his last time out (7.0 IP, 10Ks, 1BB, 1ER), and has been pretty good a few times this season, but he just fails – over and over – to build any sort of momentum. It stinks. I know.
And then, of course, there’s Mike Montgomery and Brad Brach who just continue to underwhelm, despite being used in big spots by Joe Maddon over and over. We’ll have to save that fight for another day.
And I guess I can’t do an EBS without mentioning Anthony Rizzo’s enormous … eh hem … mistake in the bottom of the eighth inning, which didn’t necessarily cost the Cubs the game, but certainly ended what could’ve been their best, last chance to score. Sigh. You nincompoop. Just throw this one way.
After you crack the super-duper mysterious code of my box score.
