I’ll get to the holy-crap-wow ending in a moment …
Remember that time the Cubs had a 5-0 lead, then an 8-4 lead against the Cardinals … and lost?
There. Do you feel better about today’s game?
The Cubs twice blew huge leads today (7-1 and 10-5), and needed 12 innings – and some good fortune – to beat the Pirates 11-10. You’ll take it, even as you shake your head a bit about the pitching.
Kyle Hendricks had great stuff today, generating a ton of strikeouts, but he also got himself into some trouble, particularly – as has happened before – when he was facing batters in the middle innings, and they’d seen a bit already on the day.
Fortunately, the Cubs did the same thing to Jeff Locke, knocking him out early and getting those big leads. It’s easy to focus on the blown leads, themselves, but, hey, great job by the offense racking up the runs. Almost too many big days to go through them one by one (including another Kris Bryant homer), but special mentions to Starlin Castro and Jorge Soler for racking up the walks (Soler had a couple intentional ones, but a couple non-intentional, too). Feels like they needed that.
Ok. The craziness.
The Cubs had a chance to walk it off in the 10th, with the bases loaded and one out following a Miguel Montero single that moved Starlin Castro to third (then a Jorge Soler intentional walk), but Matt Szczur popped out to right, and Castro was thrown out, easily, by Gregory Polanco trying to score.
In the 12th, Miguel Montero singled Castro … to third … and Soler was … intentionally walked … am I going crazy or is this the exact same thing? Then Szczur popped ANOTHER one to Polanco.
Who fell down.
Castro scores. Cubs win. I am without words. This was a gift from the gods – the gods of grass who grabbed Polanco’s cleats, I guess – and I can’t believe it happened.
The whole game, which lasted over five hours, was just crazy. I have no idea what to do with the box score.