When a guy hits a rope up the middle that ends in a diving catch, it’ll draw a few remarks, mostly about how it was crummy luck, but hey, he put a good swing on it.
But when that line out comes at the end of a 17-pitch at bat, is followed immediately by a homer, and that starting pitcher winds up getting bounced very shortly thereafter, setting up a scrub-filled bullpen day when the Cubs can pile on? Well, I could be a lot more bold in my comments about that at bat. Like, I could even suggest that it may have won the game.
Here’s the insane at bat Anthony Rizzo put together in the first inning last night:
The unsung hero. #EverybodyIn pic.twitter.com/xV9KKdcT3c
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 19, 2018
Of the at bat, Rizzo said he “saw it all”. Speaking with Cubs.com: “I saw how they were going to pitch me the whole night. … When you wear pitchers out like that, we stress all the time, it sets up the next guy and the next guy and the next guy for success.”
Joe Maddon agreed that Rizzo’s at bat set the stage for what followed: “That set up the homer. That set up Javy’s home run, no question.”
Even Diamondbacks starter Matt Andriese conceded that the Rizzo at bat blew up his outing (Cubs.com): “It put me behind the eight-ball there. I threw everything at him. I threw all four pitches, pretty good locations. He was fouling it off. It was a good battle. When I know I’m on a limited pitch count, that drove that up real quick, just being out there for two innings there, it was way too many pitches. That was the moral of the story.”
So, basically, Anthony Rizzo won the Cubs game last night with a first-inning lineout to second base. He is a bad, bad man.