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Special Moments and Special People, Impressive Young Relievers, Standings, and Other Bullets

Brett Taylor Brett Taylor
Jun 07, 2018
Chicago Cubs

The buzz. It is still quite strong. When each of the big kids came downstairs this morning, I pounced like one of the cats: “Hey! Hey! Hey! Wanna watch how the Cubs game ended last night?!?!” (And they did!)

  • Great line from Kyle Schwarber on Jason Heyward’s grand slam, and I am gettin’ some feelings:

  • Sounds like Joe Maddon called the comeback, asking Cory Mazzoni – who had entered to finish up the 9th – if he had a big league win yet. Hearing no, he responded: “You’re going to get your first one tonight.” (Cubs.com) I don’t care a lick about that particular stat, but that’s still a pretty darn cool moment. He’ll remember that one forever.
  • Mazzoni hasn’t yet allowed an earned run in his 5.0 innings of big league work, joining Justin Hancock, Randy Rosario, and Luke Farrell as guys the front office picked up over the last year for this kind of fill-in work, but all of whom have actually looked really legit and impressive.
  • And speaking of the impressive group of rotating relievers from AAA, there could very quickly be another one in the mix, as relief prospect Dakota Mekkes made his Iowa debut with a scoreless frame, flashing 95 mph, which I’ll admit is not something I knew he could do. He has very high-level deception and extension in his delivery, to which most of us were attributing his extreme lower-level success. But if he’s also pumping gas? Yeah, he’ll be able to handle AAA just fine. He just has to make sure the walk rate – which grew to 14.3% at AA – doesn’t get too out of control when he pairs it with his 30-ish% strikeout rate.
  • Isn’t it nice to be on the other side of a quote like this: “I’m proud of the way we fought. I’m proud of the way we battled. You go down, 3-0, to a team like that with a really good pitcher on the mound on the other side and you fight your way back in it and take the lead. You give yourself an opportunity to win the game on the road at Wrigley Field against a very good Cubs team. I’m proud of our men.” That’s Phillies manager Gabe Kapler to Phillies.com. Has to be a tough loss for them, though I’d note that they were extremely lucky to be leading in the first place, with two basket shots, with Albert Almora hitting two would-be-run-scoring rockets that accounted for three outs, with a routine grounder for a hit preceding one of the homers, etc.
  • Last night’s win was, in addition to being awesome on its own incredible merits, especially nice for the psyche because both the Brewers and Cardinals lost yesterday. And this is fun:

  • There was a good reason for lots of us to be feeling this way:

  • Turns out that Heyward’s granny was the Cubs’ first walk-off homer when trailing since that Bryant homer.

    • (Photo by David Banks/Getty Images)

    Embed from Getty Images

  • Huh. That’s interesting. The drought to start his career felt much longer than this, but I suppose that makes sense given the attention and expectation:

  • Carl Edwards Jr. is pain-free in his shoulder now (inflammation), and is working out, though he’s not throwing yet (Cubs.com). Yu Darvish played catch again yesterday, but there was no update on when he’ll actually throw in the pen.
  • The Diamondbacks picked up former Cub Jon Jay from the Royals, helping their outfield situation.
  • Belts, computers, and compression sleeves are among the Deals of the Day today at Amazon.

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    written by

    Brett Taylor

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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