Top Play (WPA): This was a fairly straightforward game for the Cubs, as there was very little drama on the way to the team picking up their fourth consecutive victory. This meant that there were relatively few moments with the potential to alter the course of the game. However, one such play was the definition of […]
Tag: Recap
Game 102 Recap: Cubs 4 Brewers 1
Top Play (WPA): This was a sharply played game by the Cubs, and there were several candidates that could have made it for the top play. But statistically, it was an insurance run in the sixth inning that made the biggest difference. Jorge Soler led off the inning by reaching on a throwing error by […]
Game 101 Recap: Cubs 5, Brewers 2
Top Play (WPA): This game looked out of reach early, with Jake Arrieta’s lack of sharpness (and lack of real stirrups) and the Cubs’ general offensive impotence on full display. Luckily, down two runs with two outs in the eighth, hero-of-the-night Anthony Rizzo decided that he would continue to lurch out of his long slump. […]
Game 100 Recap: Cubs 3 Rockies 2
Top Play (WPA): It’s always good to see Anthony Rizzo make hard contact with pitches he can (and should) handle. It’s even better when said contact leads to home run blasts, as was the case Wednesday afternoon when Rizzo took an 0-1 fastball and dinged it off the right-field foul pole, giving the Cubs a 3-0 […]
Game 99 Recap: Rockies 7 Cubs 2
Top Play (WPA): It’s not quite accurate to say that this game was a disaster from the start, but that’s only because Dallas Beeler had been announced as Tuesday’s starter a few days in advance and so it’s probably more accurate to say it was a disaster from whenever that happened. Beeler was flat-out dreadful, allowing four runs […]
Game 98 Recap: Cubs 9, Rockies 8
Top Play (WPA): Were I the proactive sort, I would have had to rewrite this section of the recap several times because I would have started early. As it is, I only have to write it once: Kris Bryant, following maybe the most deflating half inning of the season for the Cubs, launched a 1-0 […]
Game 97 Recap: Phillies 11 Cubs 5
Top Play (WPA): It’s beginning to get hard to not have a negative outlook when things don’t go well for the Cubs early in games. A few runs in the first inning shouldn’t be a lead that any team in professional baseball can’t come back from, but it certainly feels like it’s a death sentence […]
Game 96 Recap: Phillies 5 Cubs 0
Top Play (WPA): Nobody is going to read this recap. Nobody, because the mighty have fallen. 7,921 games after Sandy Koufax last threw one against them, at Dodger Stadium on a cool September night, the Chicago Cubs have fallen victim to that extraordinarily rare baseball accomplishment: the no-hitter. Cole Hamels, the Philadelphia starter, was masterful today, striking out […]
Game 93 Recap: Reds 9 Cubs 1
Top Play (WPA): The trouble with unitary categories like ‘single’, ‘double’, ‘triple’, and ‘home run’ is that it’s very easy to believe that they tell you more than they do. When you hear that a player hit a double, for example, your mind probably immediately fills with visions of well-struck line drives to the gap in left-center, when […]
GAME 92 RECAP: CUBS 5, REDS 4
Top Play (WPA): Per “rare Cubs occurrence” sage Christopher Kamka, the last three players Cubs prior to this game who had homered twice in the ninth or later were Ryne Sandberg in The Sandberg Game, Andre Dawson, and Sammy Sosa. Well, let this be The Schwarber Game. Having already launched a moon shot, game-tying home […]