NEWSLETTER
Did you miss tonight’s game? Well, aren’t you lucky?
I know we’re not really used to this whole “out of contention in July” thing, but man … it was a boring game and then it was a blowout game. And that’s about it. If it wasn’t for Adbert Alzolay wowing us by apparently developing ANOTHER new pitch on the fly — last year it was the slider and sinker, this year it’s the cutter — there’d hardly be anything to enjoy at all. We’ll have much more on his performance tomorrow, but the short version is that he looked mostly fine, while otherwise continuing to struggle against lefties (then again, that would be the whole point of developing the cutter). I’m mostly fine with these sort of performances out of Alzolay right now, especially if he continues to demonstrate actual development along the way (which he undoubtedly has). He’s going to be a big part of their next rotation.
After Ian Happ pinch-hit into a double play (he is really, really struggling), Cory Abbott came into the game to relieve Alzolay. Unfortunately, after a wild, but clean sixth inning, Abbott went single-homer-double-strikeout-homer in the seventh, allowing four more runs to score which put the game well out of reach. He did throw three innings tonight, though, which was nice. Let’s not use those valuable bullpen pieces unless absolutely necessary, eh?
Offensively, the Cubs managed just five hits tonight (all singles) and three walks against nine strikeouts. Blergh. That’s enough. That’s 12 losses in their last 13 games since the combined no-hitter.
Oh, wait: Brad Miller hit three home runs (two off Alzolay). I “forgot” to mention that.
