According to various sites that calculate these things, the Cubs entered the 9th inning with a 97 to 99% chance of winning the game. When you’re up 6-2, you should pretty much never lose that game.
But Phil Coke and Hector Rondon couldn’t hold the sizable lead, the Padres tied it, and it took a miraculous 11th inning to win things. I call it miraculous because the winning run – on a bases-loaded Starlin Castro single – came off of Craig Kimbrel. That, too, should pretty much never happen … but it did, and it made up for the blown 9th (and goes a long way to making up for yesterday, too).
Kyle Hendricks served up a meatball to Matt Kemp in the first inning, which he crushed for a two-run homer. And there ends the rough part of Hendricks’ day. From there, he was using all of his pitches, with excellent command, and kept the Padres off-balance for the next five innings.
Offensively, the Cubs had a ton of scoring chances early that they didn’t capitalize on, but runs in the fifth, sixth, and seventh gave the Cubs a healthy lead. Miguel Montero’s was the big bat for the day, notching two homers.
Through two days of Kris Bryant, one thing is abundantly clear: big league pitchers know how dangerous he is, and they really don’t want to give him anything at all near the zone. Yesterday, that meant a lot of swings and misses for Bryant. Today, he adjusted, and it meant three walks. Plus a couple singles – a blooper to center on which he alertly took second base when the throw went to third, and a chopper in the infield that looked like a sure out (dude can run).
And, hey: how about Zac Rosscup with two critical, excellent innings in the 10th and 11th?
What a crazy game. If you look at the numbers as a whole, the Cubs really did dominate this game.