Dan Haren’s debut with the Cubs was probably just shy of what you’d realistically want to see from him, but it really wasn’t abysmal. He did what he does now: gets fly balls, some of them leave the yard, and doesn’t walk anyone. Sometimes that’ll translate to a good outing, very rarely to a total stinker, and mostly it’ll be somewhere in the middle. His defense really didn’t help him either, as a couple of the runs that scored probably shouldn’t have.
Even facing an early 3-0 deficit (and later 4-1), the Cubs battled back, getting three runs on homers from Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo in the 6th to tie things up. Unfortunately the Pirates came out swinging in the bottom of the 6th, grabbing the lead right back, and didn’t let it go. The Cubs put a little something together in the 9th – they don’t give up – but it wasn’t enough.
I could gripe about a bunch of things from this one (probably will tomorrow morning), but, in the end, I keep landing on: it was a decent game against a very good team, and the Cubs have won six in a row. They’re not going to win every game for the rest of the season, so, well, you’re not going to like any of the losses.
All things considered, I’m having trouble getting too riled up.