Those fun, lovable Cubs lined wall to wall with blue-chippers and charged with ending Baseball’s Greatest Curse versus the been-there, done-that and reloaded Giants on their even-year march.
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BRAVES 2, PHILLIES 0: Williams Perez took a two-hitter into the seventh, helping Atlanta beat Philadelphia for just its second series win this season.
Given his overall consistency since he entered Major League Baseball in 2010 with the Atlanta Braves, signing Heyward, even for $180 million-plus looked like a good deal for the Cubs.
Certainly, the Cubs belong in the projection. The 26-year-old is coming off his best outing of the year as he struck out a season-high 11 and limited host San Diego to one run and five hits en route to a complete game on Tuesday.
MARLINS 3, NATIONALS 2: At Miami, Jose Fernandez pitched six innings and then led the dugout celebration as Miami made him a victor again at Marlins Park by beating Washington.
Madison Bumgarner earned the respect of Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon after working out of trouble during a 28-pitch first inning Sunday night and lasting 115 pitches and 7 2/3 innings to lead the San Francisco Giants to a 1-0 win. He noted that successful Giants teams in the past have done the same thing. He’s got a 2.45 ERA this season, with 71 strikeouts, 51 walks and just 18 walks in 58.2 innings pitched.
Still, if Buster Posey had gotten a few more feet of carry on that fly ball, maybe Friday night’s opener would’ve turned out differently.
Cain (1-5) got his first victory since July 22, 2015, against San Diego, snapping a streak of 15 consecutive winless starts.
Saturday was an important bounce-back, both for the Giants and a certain right-hander.
Don’t tell that to Matt Cain – he savored every minute of his first victory in 10 months. Despite pitching at least six innings and allowing no more than two runs in his last three games, Cain leads the Major Leagues with the worst run support, averaging 1.96 runs per game. It’s good to see him gain traction. “He’s healthy and he’s close, he’s just got to be a little more consistent with the executive of the pitches”. The guy the Cubs faced looked suspiciously close, down to the stoic expression that hasn’t changed since he pitched for the Fresno Grizzlies (with those ugly forest green caps) in 2005.
Predictably, Cain isn’t buying into the “he’s back” narrative. “When I saw him walk off the bus this morning I felt good about it”. “It was moving, it was leaking, I was pulling”.
If Cain’s recent outings become habit, the Giants’ rotation will really solidify. “That’s a pretty good day”. Really, it’s nearly as if he’s functioned as a two pitch hurler in 2016, as he’s thrown his curve just 103 times this season (he’s used the cutter three times as much), and he’s only used his changeup 30 times.
Players have been answering a lot of admittedly premature question about a potential Cubs-Giants October dustup. Mad because he walked Anthony Rizzo in the eighth. None has reached his prime.
Joe Panik and Matt Duffy made diving plays at second and third base to take away hits. Brandon Crawford made a strong throw from deep in the hole. So the heart of this lineup has a fairly youthful beat as well.
The Giants have won five straight games started by Bumgarner, and over his last six starts the lefty has posted a minuscule 1.69 ERA. Somewhere, Will Clark and Mark Grace are smiling. “I don’t want to downplay it, but I don’t want to make a big deal about it, either”. I realize the season isn’t even a third of the way through.
On the whole, Hendricks is using a changeup that he perfected going into the 2015 season to his advantage, and has seen his K/9 rate climb in the last two seasons from about 5.3 in 2014 to 8.4 previous year and 8.1 so far in 2016.
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Holy cow, if only Harry Caray could be around to see it.
