Well here we are. There’s not much to talk about here. This seems pointless, but you’re here anyway, so let’s do it.
Kyle Hendricks, or Kyle Kendricks as Tim McCarver referred to him as that at least 25 times today during the broadcast, was locked in. Hendricks threw a CG shutout on 81 pitches, you read that right, 81 pitches (63 strikes).
The Cubs made some nice plays behind Hendricks today, each outfielder (Schwarber, Heyward, Zobrist) had a sliding catch coming in on shallow fly balls.
The Cards tabbed only 4 hits on Hendricks, all singles in four separate innings. KoWo in the 3rd, Bader in the 6th, Yadi in the 8th, and Dex (pinch-hitting and finally not sick, thank you) to leadoff the 9th.
Flaherty wasn’t all that bad himself, just really beat himself in the 3rd inning. Flaherty pumped out 9 k’s thru only 5.2 innings today. His fastball was zipping and his slider had nice tight movement to both lefties and righties.
Unfortunately, the deep counts and walks would come back to bite Flaherty in the 3rd.
After striking out Hendricks looking at a heater, Descalso and Bryant would work back-to-back walks, bringing up Rizzo. What happened next was kind of predictable and I hate saying that, but it really was.
Rizzo sent a Flaherty fastball on the inner half to deep RF, tucking a three run shot just fair to make it a 3-0 Cubs lead.
Báez (3 k’s vs Flaherty) and Contreras (2 k’s vs Flaherty) would strikeout to end the inning.
That’s about it with this game.
I mean there were stupid plays, weird home plate umpiring, and Hendricks was just on a god level out there, apparently.
The Cubs added an insurance run in the bottom of the 7th off Gallegos, getting a two run single from Báez to score Bryant to make it 4-0.
Michael Wacha (2-0, 4.78) looks to even the series up vs Yu Darvish (2-3, 5.02) tomorrow afternoon. First pitch from Wrigley is at 3:05pm c/t.
Cheers, Stew
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