I’m temporarily back to the blog. After spending a week in London and Scotland, I got home Sunday night, picked up my dog from the parents on Monday and largely caught up on work today. I do want to talk about my trip in some detail, but I’m anxious to get something posted now. Hopefully over the next couple of nights, I’ll be able to get things started, but I have a lot of drafts pending and trade posts unfinished. The Europe stuff may have to wait until I’m settled into my hotel in India, because in just about 10 days, I’ll be flying out there for a 3-week work trip.
So, today, I’m throwing up this third part of the 2018 season, because it’s been 26 days since the last installment, and I missed a whole week of games while I was gone, and I really don’t want to fall drastically behind on another series.
After bouncing back and forth all season and hovering near .500, the Cubs finally broke out with a 5-game win streak. And then they proceeded to follow that up with a 5-game losing streak. At times, I really don’t know how this club has a winning record overall. Our bats were not strong during that winning stretch, either, so you’ll see a lot of pitchers on this list. Still, we made it through and I’m happy to have a few more in the W column.
For the first time this season, I now have to decide how to handle players I don’t collect that earn the player of the game honors. My decision is that I’m going to use cards from other players from the World Series team that are no longer with the Cubs. Pitcher for pitcher and batter for batter.
Win #12 – Kyle Hendricks – In a 1-0 win, pitching is crucial. Luckily, Kyle gave his team 7 innings out of 9, while only allowing 4 hits with no walks or runs (obviously), and recording 5 Ks
Win #13 – Yu Darvish (not pictured) – Darvish has been disappointing this season (and currently on the DL as of this writing). However, on this game day, he managed 6 innings, 3 hits, 2 BB, a whopping 8 strikeouts and was tagged for 1 unearned run. He also hit a nice, awkward double where he stumbled rounding the bases (not the cause of his DL stint, I think)
Win #14 – Jose Quintana (not pictured) – Huge performances from our starters in this stretch of games. Jose has been more solid overall with the Cubs, but slipped some this year. Here, he went 7 innings, held the Brewers to 2 hits, and 1 walk. He struck out 7 and kept them scoreless. He also picked off one of those few base runners at first.
Win #15 – Tyler Chatwood (not pictured) – Another new Cub starter that has occasionally under-performed, he followed Jose’s lead by also going 7 innings, only letting Milwaukee have 2 hits and zero runs. No pick-off and he did give up 3 BBs, and only 4 Ks, but Tyler did contribute with his bat by hitting the game-winning RBI single.
Win #16 – Bryant – The only batter of the bunch. Bryant displayed some nice defense (it’s been good to see that part of his game seem to improve) and also rocked a triple that led to the game-winning run on Rizzo’s subsequent ground out.
Five straight wins, but that was surrounded by five losses, so that stretch was equalized. Can’t win the division like that.
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