This game was exciting enough early on — well, as exciting as a matchup between two bottom-feeding teams in late August can get — with a Frank Schwindel home run, a Robinson Chirinos-Byron Buxton caught stealing, a Chirinos RBI triple, and a really fantastic diving catch from Buxton, who robbed Alfonso Rivas of a hit … but then it really slowed down, as both starting pitchers completely took over.
In fact, at one point, John Gant retired ten straight batters just as Zach Davies retired nine in a row, himself. It was, uh, pretty boring actually. But the intensity turned up late.
First, the Cubs loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the 7th inning, but the Twins made a pitching change and Tyler Duffey struck out Alfonso Rivas, Robinson Chirinos, and Andrew Romine in a row to end the threat. In the bottom of the 7th inning, Codi Heuer had to come in to bail out Manny Rodriguez, who actually had a really nice multi-inning appearance tonight, all things considered, but he made it work. Then, in the top of the eighth, Ian Happ absolutely murdered a baseball for his 17th homer of the year (from the right side, no less). And in the bottom half of that inning, Matt Duffy made an incredible inning-ending, game-saving double play including an out at the plate with the bases loaded.
(Oh, and at the same time all of this was going down, Shohei Ohtani literally stole home in a different game).
The Cubs bullpen was able to hang on thereafter and the Cubs took the first of this two-game set. This win won’t help the Cubs in the reverse standings, but there were some nice individual performances and the Twins are, you know, pretty bad, too. You can’t lose ’em all.