That’s a guaranteed series win for the Cubs! The third win in a four-game series, with the fourth game still on deck, might be my favorite type of series game win. I think I like it better than the sweep win, and better than winning the rubber game of a three-game set. Oddly, I think I also really like winning the third game of a series to avoid a three-game sweep. I think about strange things during games like this.
This is what all weekend games should look like: Cubs take early lead, game maybe kinda gets close in the middle innings, Cubs pull away big-time late. Just enough excitement to stay interesting, but also enough Cubs scoring to ponder strange things, and to be comfortable even when the other team starts knocking around the middle relievers.
Speaking of which: although the Nationals may have dumped Brandon Kintzler for stupid reasons, he sure hasn’t pitched well since that trade to the Cubs. So there’s that.
In any case, the Cubs’ bats showed off the thump again today, and also took advantage of some Reds miscues in the field to pad their lead. You always like to see that.
Jose Quintana made it to just one batter in the 6th inning, which he walked, and that’s kind of become his MO this year. I do wonder if we’re going to find out after the season that he wasn’t quite all the way there in his arm health/condition (he took some time off at midseason for what the Cubs called “shoulder fatigue,” if you remember). Hopefully he can just keep giving the Cubs five good innings per start, and now that rosters will be expanding, the bullpen can more easily shoulder the rest.
Javy Baez is now up to 97(!) RBI on the year. That’s a lot of fun.
