First of all …… SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
The Chicago Cubs just finished off a three-game sweep of the pesky San Francisco Giants, whose season looks a heck of a lot different today, than it did when these two teams met about a month ago. The Giants are now two games under .500, 20.5 back of first place in the NL West, and 5.5 games back of the Wild Card. I guess they should’ve sold at the deadline. 🙂
The Cubs meanwhile, well they’re suddenly hot:
After a five-game winning streak, the Chicago #Cubs are now 11 games over .500 (tied for the highest of the year!).
— Michael Cerami (@Michael_Cerami) August 22, 2019
As for the game itself, how predictable was that?
After these two teams put up a combined 23 runs last night, there was just one total run all day today – and it wasn’t even a particularly well-earned run. But, hey, all you need is one more than the other guys, and Kyle Hendricks made sure that was enough.
Indeed, Hendricks was absolutely fantastic this afternoon, with 7.0 scoreless innings of 3-hit baseball plus no walks and 7 strikeouts. And Joe Maddon didn’t mess around with the bullpen, leaning on only his most trustworthy arms (Brandon Kintzler, Kyle Ryan, and Rowan Wick) to get in the action. How huge were those three guys plus Craig Kimbrel this weekend? Yeesh.
The offense didn’t do much today, but I don’t want to dwell on that. After all, Jeff Samardzija may have been good … but the Cubs were better.