The Chicago Cubs bounced Pittsburgh Pirates starter Francisco Liriano, who has notoriously dominated the Cubs in recent years, from the game before he’d even finished five innings today.
How?
Well, when you go deep on him three times, that tends to do the trick.
Addison Russell got things started with this three-run shot in the bottom of the fourth inning. It’s not embeddable, but you can watch it at the link there. On a day with the wind blowing out, there was absolutely no doubt about that one, even if it wasn’t utterly crushed.[adinserter block=”1″]
Russell was the subject of some well-timed love from Michael before the game. The young man is breaking out in a big way.
The next inning, Kris Bryant got into one that kinda looked like a fisted short one off the bat, but it just kept carrying:
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According to Statcast, that was Bryant softest homer of his career by a long shot:
Kris Bryant's HR was 94.2 mph, the softest of his career and first below 99. Just 3.3% of 2015-16 HR were hit at 94 mph or softer.
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) May 13, 2016
A handful of batters after Bryant, David Ross continued his yearlong retirement party with career homer number 99:
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That was eight quick runs for the Cubs, and enough to remove Liriano from the game.