The Cubs returned to playoff form by playing a great baseball game on
Sunday. Trailing 4-2 after 2 innings, the Cubs scored 10 unanswered
runs to win 12-4. Every Cubbie contributed in this win as all
11 players either had a hit or scored a run. This was the best game the Cubs have played
in August as all facets of the game were well played. The pitching was
outstanding. Tom Barnes pitched as he did during the playoff stretch
last year. In an emergency long relief stint, Tom went 8 innings and
gave up only 2 earned runs both of which came in the first inning.
Over Tom's final six innings he gave up just two hits and no runs.
Mark Grogan came on to pitch the ninth and looked very good facing
just three batters and striking out 2.
This was the best defensive game for the Cubbies in a few weeks. Two
noteworthy plays were made. John Sudkin made a diving stop of a grounder
to his left at the first base bag. Tony Leary caught the entire game
and made a great play on an overthrow of first base. Package hustled
down the line picked up the overthrow and threw a strike to Dan Gould
covering second to tag out the runner.
Offensively, the Cubs were on fire smashing 19 hits including 4 doubles
and 2 triples against a decent pitching team. There were so many offensive
stars. Dan Gould was moved to the cleanup spot and continued his tear.
Dan went 4-5 with 2 doubles driving in 2 and scoring 2. For the second
straight game Dan stole third and scored on
the overthrow of the catcher! Dan's first three hits all came with 2
strikes on him. Oh have the Cubs missed the presense of Pete DiNatale.
Pete solidified the defense and had a great day at the plate going 3-3
with a triple and a walk. His triple turned into an error aided homer
when the second baseman made an errant throw. Tom Barnes collected
three singles and has started to heat up with the bat at the right time.
There were two big innings in this game for the Cubs. In the third
inning 4 runs were scored after there were two outs and no one on base.
This was huge because the Brewers were leading 4-2 at that time. Pete
DiNatale, John Sudkin, Dan Gould and
Tom Barnes all got key hits during the rally. The other big moment of
the game came in the eighth inning. The Cubs led 7-4 and had wasted
basesloaded opportunities in the 6th and 7th innings by not scoring any
runs. Package started the uprising by hitting a one out double down
the third base line. Chris
Dunn singled Package to third and Mark Grogan walked to load the bases.
Up came Frank Fazio. Frank pulled his
clutch magic again ripping a triple over the center fielder's head.
Andy Schultz followed and had his best hit of the year, a double
over the right fielder's head that was just killed.
A special thanks to John Sudkin's dad for umpiring the game for us. We
would have had to cancel the game because no umpires showed up, but Mr.
Sudkin filled in and did a great job!
Injuries are starting to mount for the Cubs. Really the only bad news
from this game was that Andy Luckhardt started the game but could not
finish pitching to the first batter because of tightness in his
shoulder. John Sudkin's back has also started to bother him, although
Suds had a very productive game.