The 2015 NL Cy Young Award victor hurt his right hamstring during a loss at Pittsburgh on September 4.
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Chicago Cubs relief pitcher Carl Edwards Jr. Arrieta, who is eligible for free agency after the season, could be making his last start in a Cubs uniform.
While the news may seem surprising to many when the Nationals need to win the next game or go home, Baker explained that Strasburg wouldn’t pitch early because he isn’t feeling well.
But that’s when the Nationals seized their opportunity, with a huge misplay by the Cubs opening the door. Although it wasn’t necessarily a lazy can-of-corn type of flyball, it was extremely routine. When he went to pick the ball up with his glove, he smacked it past him onto the warning track. Cue the Benny Hill music. Yep, sounds like a Jose Quintana start. He drove a 1-2 pitch from Pedro Strop into the right-center field gap for a double that scored Murphy and gave the Nationals a 1-0 lead. But they keep score by wins.
Tanner Roark (13-11, 4.67 ERA) will start the game for the Nationals vs. It also ended Scherzer’s night.
“I want to make guys pay”, Rizzo said. “We just hung in there”. “We pull on the same rope every day”. “It was the first time for me in the postseason, it was a different feeling for sure, different because you can’t make mistakes”. In their Game 2 victory Washington got four shutout innings from their relievers and didn’t even have to use Kintzler.
Several Nationals players are apparently feeling a bit ill, and not just because their NL-best offense has a.431 combined OPS in the series against Chicago. “Of course you do”, said Maddon if a team needs luck here and there in the playoffs.
The Cubs and Nationals took batting practice and the grounds crew got the field ready before bringing out the tarp. I know (Heyward) is a leftie and I know Solis is a left-handed pitcher. “I can not be happier than I am with our group right now”. And if the first three games are to be used as reference, the Nationals could be going home early.
“Sometimes”, Zimmerman said, “it takes kind of just one hit for everyone to exhale”. The decision immediately backfired as Albert Almora Jr. pinch-hit for Kyle Schwarber, roping a single to tie it up.
Max Scherzer pitching in game three does not help at all with the Cubs struggles at the plate. “We’re not just getting thrown in there unprepared”.
Tommy LaStella pinch hit and walked for the Cubs to lead off the eighth, and pinch runner Leonys Martin was sacrificed to second. But again, the two-strike knocks, KB and Riz had hard first four at-bats combined, and after that they come up with two pretty big hits. Roark has a 4.26 ERA in 86 2/3 road innings. Despite his dominant outing in Game 1 of the series, Nationals pitching coach Mike Maddux said Sunday there was no chance Strasburg would pitch Tuesday on short rest.
Even after a bad fielding blunder by Kyle Schwarber in left field that allowed the Nationals to break through against an equally solid Jose Quintana, the Cubs just blew it off. Maybe it’s Murphy or Rendon, both of whom hit over.300 during the regular season.
The game is slated to begin at 4:08 p.m. ET Wednesday at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
“What you did, you know, previously, means nothing anymore”, said Rizzo of the team’s resilience. “But we’re focused on the game itself, not the celebration”. Ben Zobrist broke up Max Scherzer’s no-hitter in the seventh inning with a double.
In the top of the sixth, the Cubs had yet to scratch out a hit against Stephen Strasburg, who looked all the phenom he was dubbed to be when he entered the league at the beginning of the decade.
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“Man, he blasted that ball a ton”, Baker said. “We still have to execute and focus”.
