Man, what a palate cleanser that extra-innings, late-night, walk-off win was, some 12ish hours after the Cubs and Dodgers started playing baseball.
After blowing a game earlier in the day against the Dodgers, the Cubs managed to put together a win to split the doubleheader, an outcome you pretty much always have to begrudgingly accept. And since it happened in the order it did, we wake up today feeling much better than if it had been in reverse.
With the bullpen and defense managing to hold the Dodgers scoreless after Mike Montgomery departed the nightcap, the Cubs’ bats just needed to score a single run to take the game. It took until the 10th, but Kris Bryant, Dave Roberts, and Albert Almora made it happen:
That Bryant shot was his second almost homer of the day, having just missed a homer in the first game (which, sigh, would have changed the fortunes in that one). There isn’t another park in baseball where you can hit one 356 to 367 feet right down the line and have it not leave the park, but Bryant managed the feat twice in a single day. Remember that when discussing his power outage, I guess.
After the Bryant triple, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts elected to walk Javy Baez intentionally so that they could instead face a much higher contact hitter in Albert Almora, Jr., a strange decision given that a strikeout in that situation is your dream scenario. Don’t get me wrong, I get that Javy Baez is an intimidating hitter, but he’s also a huge strikeout risk. Albert Almora, by contrast, is not.
I also don’t entirely get walking Baez to face Almora if you aren’t just going to load the bases and create a force at home. I suppose the answer there is at least a justifiable one: you don’t want to face Anthony Rizzo with the game on the line and no outs. But if the Dodgers had instead faced Baez, maybe getting a strikeout, then they could have walked Almora and Rizzo to give them a force at home and a chance at the double play. I didn’t really get the thinking in that inning.
But it worked out for the Cubs, as Almora ripped a 104.8 mph single the other way, walking the Cubs off for the first time in his career.
Part One of Albert Almora For The Win! @cubs #EverybodyIn #GoCubsGo #wrigley @BleacherNation @realcubsinsider @albertalmora pic.twitter.com/I3xzRalX7n
— MBDChicago (@MBDChicago) June 20, 2018
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) June 20, 2018
First career walk-off RBI for @albertalmora! #EverybodyIn pic.twitter.com/KzQDHG9cXP
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) June 20, 2018