Game 146 Recap: Cubs 4 Brewers 5

Not Tonight

Box Score, Play Log, Game Graphs

W - Nelson (8-14), Clubhouse attendants who don't want to clean up after champagne parties

L - Grimm (1-1 ), Dummies who stay up late when they should be preparing to teach tomorrow.

S - Thornburg (10)

Things to Take from This Game

 1. Montgomery looks good.

Mike Montgomery pitched a fine 6 innings with just 1 earned run, two more coming in unearned, walking one and striking out seven.  For a sixth starter in September it was an encouraging audition for the post-season, or 2017. He even knocked in a run with a single back up the middle, for his first career hit.

 2.  Russell with some yips.

Hopefully it's just a one-off thing, but Russell sailed throws high, wide-right, and wide-left tonight, for two errors. One of them resulted in two runs. Stay tuned.

3.  Soler hit a ball very hard.

Soler's laser-beam 2-run HR and a couple of Heyward doubles down each line were the offensive highlights of the night.

 

The deflating details, below

Essential Questions

1.  If not now, then when?

Tomorrow is Start the Scrubs day. My bet is the Cards lose tonight and the Scrubs clinch for us, tomorrow, the way it ought to be.

2.  It was just a one-off thing with Addy's throws, right?

Unless you've been looking for something new to get anxious about....

3.  Is Montgomery pitching his way onto the postseason team?

Dumb question. He already was on it.

 

Game Recap

 Top of 1st

• Len looks terrifying in these new glasses.  I look up form my computer and there's some sort of weird tinting to my television, and that plus the weird tinting on Len's new glasses makes the whole thing just frightening.
• Villar singles to Russell's left on the first pitch of the game.
• Broxton smokes one to center but Fowler ranges to his right for the catch.
• Braun is lustily booed, and grounds into a very standard 6-4-3.  Inning over.

Bottom of 1st

• Nelson comes back from a 3-1 count to K Fowler looking on a fastball.
• Bryant breaks his bat grounding out to Arcia. Hustles down to first, as per usual.
• Rizzo lines one over the shift into right for a single.

 

Top of 2nd

• Carter walks.
• Montgomery freezes Murphy with a tight curveball, called looking.
• and Perez K's swinging.  Monty looks sharp so far.
• Arcia, first-pitch swinging, flies to Fowler in short center.

Bottom of 2nd

•  Russell skies a popup between third and short.  Wind blowing around a bit, and Perez and Arcia watch it drop to the grass. Ridiculously, it counts as a hit.
• 1-0 count to Soler, and he takes a fastball down the middle and Glenallen Hill's it out to left. Absolute Missile. 2-0 Cubs.
• Heyward jams himself and grounds to Arcia, shifted to the first-base side of second base.
• Montero muscles one into shallow center.
• Montgomery K's swinging.
• Fowler K's swinging through a fastball

Top of 3rd

• Maldonado and Nelson both K swinging.  Montgomery looks sharp.
• Villar grounds 6-3.  Easy inning as I make some refried bean, cheese, and sriracha sauce microwaved burritos.  Thank you, Monty.

 

Bottom of 3rd

•  Bryant with a soft liner to Carter at first.
• Rizzo nearly gets grazed by a pitch, but walks instead.
• and Zobrist walks on a fastball low and inside.
• Russell squibs one to the second base bag, where Villar picks it up as he steps on the bag and throws to first for the double play.

Top of 4th

• Broxton hits a 3-2 fastball into the Juniper bushes.  2-1 Cubs.
• Braun hits a roller to Russell who airmails Rizzo. Rizzo makes a nice leaping catch and lands on the bag. For a guy who doesn't look like he should be graceful, Rizzo sure gets it done....
• Montgomery follows up a changeup with a curveball for called strike three on Carter.
• Russell ranges to his right on a Perez grounder, but throws a bit wide of Rizzo, to his right. It bounces off of Rizzo's glove. Not a good throw, but seemed a bit odd Rizzo didn't snag the throw. An Error.
• Runner goes with the pitch, and Santana slices one just inside the right field line. Heyward plays the caromb well, but the throw in gets past the cutoff man, losing a chance to get Santana advancing to second. Runners at 2 and 3, trouble brewing. Ooops, ran into a pun there. Sorry.
• Arcia lines a double into the left-field corner.  3-2 Brewers.  This was an unnecessary inning.
• Maldanado ends the inning with  5-3 roll-out.

Bottom of 4th

• Soler K's swinging
• Heyward slices a double inside the left-field line.
• Montero skies one into right-center, Broxton has it. Heyward goes to third. Just missed it.
• Montgomery's first major league hit ties the game, as he takes a fastball down the middle back up the middle.  3-3 game.
• Fowler rolls one just past Villar, who had shifted toward first base.  Montgomery misses second base in his first go at it, but eventualy finds it.
• As the crowd chants MVP, Bryant K's. Life is like that, sometimes.

Top of 5th

•  Nelson K's looking.
• Villar K's on a breaking piece diving in toward his feet.
• Broxton rolls out to Russell.

 

Bottom of 5th

• Rizzo K's swinging.
• Zobrist bounces out to Villar.
• Russell reaches for one low and away, grounds into the hole, and Arcia gets him. Arcia looks as good as advertised on D.

 

Top of 6

• Braun chops one to Bryant, easy out.
• As does Carter.
• As does Perez. That was easy.

 

Bottom of 6

•  Soler flies to center.

• Len's glasses still terrify me, but JD compliments them.

• Heyward flies to right.
• Montero lines one just to Arcia's left for a single.
• LaStella pinch hits for Montgomery. Nice work tonight from the 6th starter. K's swinging

 

Top of 7th

• Grimm in. Santana slices one into the right-center gap, to the wall, for a double.
• Arcia K's looking at a curveball on the outside corner.
• Maldonado walks.
• Gennet pinch-hits and lofts one down the left-field line. Soler jogs after it and it drops in for a double. Not sure he had a play on it, but with a throw that misses two cutoff men, none of it looks good. 5-3 Brewers.
• Villar K's looking at a fastball down.
• Joe Smith in for Grimm.
• Smith K's Broxton swinging

Bottom of 7th

• Torres in to pitch, Fowler grounds to third.
• Bryant singles to Arcia's left, up the middle.
• Rizzo grounds to Villar, who aggressively charges but can only get the out at first.
• Torres throws a high fastball and Maldonado throws behidn Bryant at second, where Arcia gets him. TOOTBLAN'd.

 

Top of 8th

• Braun singles to right, then nealry is picked off first.  Replay review. JD declares him "outtish." Replay taking forever. Looks Outtish to me.
• Out.
• Carter flies out lazily to Fowler.
• Perez grounds to Russell, who throws another one away, this time to Rizzo's left.  Again I wonder if Rizzo might have been able to get to it had he strayed further off the bag, but no doubt the fault's with Russell.  That's alarming, three bad throws tonight from Russell.
• Zobrist makes a nice diving snag on a liner from Broxton, hit to his right.

Bottom of 8th

•  Zobrist walks
• Russell battles, but K's on a breaking pitch in the dirt.
• As a few in the crowd chant Hip Hip, Jorge!, Jorge strikes out looking at a cutter on the inside.
• Thornburg in to pitch
• Heyward lines a fastball into the right-field corner. Soler comes around to score. Two doubles tonight for Heyward.  5-4 Brewers.
• Thornburg seems to cross-up Maldonado and the result is a fastball headed toward the catcher's right shin guard, clanking off the glove before it gets there. Wild pitch, runner to third.
• Montero walks.  Contreras in to pinch hit for Joe Smith.
• Szczur in to pinch-run for Montero
• Contreras gets fooled by a big breaking ball that backs up over the plate, called strike three.

Top of 9th

•  Patton pitching, and Fowler makes a nice running grab in the right-center gap on a liner hit by Arcia
• Maldonado swings through a fastball down in the zone, striking out.
• Yadiel Rivera pinch hits (who!?!?!) and hits one to Bryant's left. He makes a diving stop, gets up and throws to first, just getting him. No challenge, clearly out. Nice play.

Bottom of 9th

• They're playing James Brown's Gonna Have a Funky Time, coming out of break. Nice.
• Fowler gets called out on strike three on, wait for it, a questionable call. PitchTrax has it just on the plate.
• Bryant grounds to Arcia.
• Thornburg refuses to throw fastballs to Rizzo, and walks him. Baez in to run.
• Zobrist bounces to just behind second, where Arcia picks it and steps on the bag.  A glum crowd as the Cubs lose.

 

 

Parachat Recap

 

1st Inning

• Chemtrails ties to Hillary Emails.
• The Mole People Would have Killed Crunch If.....
• Biz, Block, Brick, Charlie, Crunch, Whip and Me all in attendance to start....
• Booing Braun
• Wrigley attendance ruins Whip's Uber pricing scheme.
• JAG joins.
• And CTSteve.
• Jimmy Nelson has a Big Butt, but is no Sid Fernandez. And, the beard isn't hiding it.
• This set of names parachatting is so 2008, we're all going to.....
• Zobrist fists one toward Villar at second, who gets the force-out at second.
• Conditions under which it is permissible to drink a Pumpkin Ale.

2nd Inning

•  Black IPAs
• Why Daniel Murphy isn't in the running for MVP award with Bryant.
• WAR and Hendricks' season
• Trans is waiting for it.... waiting for it.... waiting for it.... oh, my, god.
• Hope for Heyward.
• Missing pupils
• Johann arrives.
• The Tim Federowicz show starring Tim Federowicz

3rd Inning

•  Soler abusing baseballs vs. Chapman abusing the mother of his kid. I have a sad.
• Who is the Cy Young? (Hendricks)
• Who is sexier, Bryant or Rizzo?  (Bryant)
• Hendricks knows how to hit JAG's spots.
• Crushes on Russell, Kawano
• Hendricks has elite command, down in the zone.
• Arrieta, practitioner of tantric?
• extensive speculation on the love-making prowress of various Cubs.
• Whip's shit-colored font.
• Brick with the observation of the night:  At bat, Rizzo moves like a background character in a 1930s cartoon.
• We wait for crunch's woo.
• Dressing for November at Wrigley
• Discussing Russell's "hit."
• Other dumb rules.
• Rule-changes: Playing multi-ball.

4th Inning

•  Ways to liven up baseball.
• Pitching rotation options for post-season
• How to use Chapman, and then how to get the hell away from him.
• We really don't like rooting for Chapman.  Take note, Cubs Front Office.
• Rizzo is Balletic.
• More praise for Rizzo.
• Praise for Bryant's improved D.
• 2017 Rotation and beyond.
• Bjork's relevancy.
• Annoyances with mlb.tv streaming.
• Is Pokemon Go still a thing? (yes. Hatched my first Snorlax the other day.)
• The mlb.tv settlement.
• What we get Vacation for.
• academic research in Hawaii.
• big_lowitzki joins.
• Carlos joins.
• Who's Deplorable?
• Climaxing to Montgomery's First Knock.
• Chad has joined.
• I Wanna Sex You Up.
• Chad has left.
• We miss Chad.  Come back, Chad. All is forgiven.
• Brick, in stereo.

5th Inning

• TOOTBLAN and SOOTBLANs with Bryant
• Conditions under which we'd do Bryant.
• Is JAG really Chad in disguise? Evidence is inconclusive.
• The Katy Perry Catfisher.
• Q:  Who judges another man's joy?
• A: very true. very, very true.
• Dating actual catfish.
• De-boing the catfish.
• Careless Whiskers.
• I'm losing it.
• Reeling her in.

 

6th Inning

• Clinching with a win
• Clinching Bryant.
• Sausage Races.
• Len's glasses.
• Stranger Things
• Clenching
• Rick and Morty

7th Inning

• Our views toward LaStella. (What's the gripe with a guy who doesn't live and die for baseball, and would rather be a Cub or go do something else? fine by me.)
• Beard-sack.
• Beard of Bees.
• BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
• Johann with some pirate-beard-braided-nutsack-thingy, I don't even know.
• Do pirates bathe?
• Catching a Pikachu
• Invited to JAG's for BBQ.
• Neko Atsume
• Slither
• Too much wine.
• John Beasley joins.
• Passing Micky Mantle. That has to hurt.  (That made me LOL, Biz.)
• Schwarber/Soler and next  year's OF Defense.
• Shohei Otani as a Cub.
• Amora's future as a Cub.

•  Trading for Sale.
• Revenge of the TOOTBLAN.

8th Inning

• Go Cards?  (No.)
• Looking Outtish.
• Jeromy Burnitz joins.
• Sneezing so hard I scared the cat.
• Leading the majors in Catchers' Pickoffs.
• What Would Bjork Think.
• the election.
• RALLY CAPS
• alt-righted.
• What does LMSO stand for?
• Cubs Prospect Busts.
• Little Szczurs.
• Pizza Puns

9th Inning

• Frogs bumping their asses.
• More Pokemon.
• Wife-jokes.
• Tom Ricketts' Watch
• Kriss Kross
• The Zodiac Killer
• Riots
• Everyone leaves before my feed of the game shows the Cubs losing.  You are all jerks.

 

 

 Cubs fall to 2-3 in games recapped in 2016.  Start a gofundme to keep me from recapping, again.