Enhanced Box Score: Cubs 4, Giants 3 – June 6, 2021

June 6, 2021, by Brett Taylor Chicago Cubs

Whew. That’s not a great series for the Cubs, but it is great that they managed to stave off the sweep today. The Giants played them tough all weekend, and it’s inherently tough to go west without a day off. Still, you would’ve liked to have seen the Cubs manage a split. Alas, today is the best they could muster, and FOR TODAY, I’ll take it.

Patrick Wisdom. Patrick Wisdom. I had to say it twice because he’s been that good. Also he homered twice today, accounting for three of the Cubs’ four runs.

Here’s hoping Javy Báez will be OK. He left the game early with right thumb soreness.

I’ll lead off with the good part: Kyle Hendricks got himself together a bit in the middle innings, gritted out with what he had, and ultimately turned in a quality start. The three runs he gave up came early, though, as he was really having trouble locating – uncharacteristically non-competitive balls aplenty, and so many sinkers up. He was getting hit hard for it, and there’s definitely some good fortune baked into his results today.

Ryan Tepera was very not sharp, falling behind batters, no command, and pitches not sharp. He’s been brilliant for so long, though, that I’ll forgive him a bad outing. Thankfully, the Giants didn’t QUITE get enough when came into the zone, and a very scary 7th inning wound up being the Giants’ last good scoring chance. Andrew Chafin and Craig Kimbrel wrapped things up nicely with the one-run lead.

Gotta give love to Kris Bryant there for a beautiful leaping catch at the wall on Kimbrel’s first pitch. A leadoff double from the would-be tying run became an out thanks to the guy who just plays anywhere.