I’m not sure I’ve ever been at a more intense six-run game.
The crowd was as charged up as its been since the playoffs, and this was a mid-June game. And the intensity was spiking in the third inning! It was nuts.
Also nuts: Jake Arrieta. He didn’t have his best command today, but he clearly had some of his best stuff, because the Pirates could do absolutely nothing with him. Though he faced a couple tight spots, the second of which was self-made, Arrieta summoned his best when it mattered most. He’s a stud. But you knew that.
The Cubs scored two runs on the first two pitches of the game, and then mostly fell silent against Francisco Liriano until he lost his own command in the middle innings. [adinserter block=”1″]
In the sixth, the Cubs added a few runs, all with two outs on back-to-back hits by Ben Zobrist and Albert Almora, and then a bases-loaded Addison Russell walk that came on pitch 13 of his plate appearance! It was incredible.
The Cubs added a run in the seventh in a truly bizarre way when Almora seemingly singled up the middle – or so it seemed to Anthony Rizzo, who plowed over the second baseman in an attempt to go first to third (at least that’s what it looked like from where I was sitting). The play was reviewed, and, because Rizzo was safe on the force attempt, but then out after when he came off the bag, Dexter Fowler, who’d been at third base, was allowed to score. It was weird.
Great game.