Game 147 Thread / Cubs @ Astros (kinda), (1 of 2)

[Updated 10:40 by ruz]: Whoooooooo!!!!!!! 

Game Chat | Press Pass | BR Preview

SP Carlos Zambrano SP *Randy Wolf
13-5, 3.58, 117 K, 64 BB, 173.1 IP
10-11, 4.45, 146 K, 67 BB, 174 IP
       
LF Alfonso Soriano LF *Darin Erstad
SS Ryan Theriot CF *Michael Bourn
1B Derrek Lee SS Miguel Tejada
3B Aramis Ramirez 1B #Lance Berkman
C Geovany Soto 3B #Geoff Blum
RF Mark DeRosa RF Hunter Pence
CF Reed Johnson 2B *David Newhan
2B Ronny Cedeno C Humberto Quintero
P #Carlos Zambrano P *Randy Wolf

 

About 72 hours and one hurricane ago, the Cubs held on to beat the Cardinals, 3-2, and extend their NL Central lead over the Brewers to 5 1/2 games. As the Cubs and Astros take the field tonight at Miller Park, where they have been driven by Hurricane Ike, the Cubs' lead is 6 1/2, and the Brewers are desperately trying to hold off the Phillies and Astros for the Wild Card lead.

The Astros, who must surely have many other things on their minds right now besides baseball, have won six in a row and 14 of their last 15 to claw back into post-season contention. (They were 11 games behind the Brewers as recently as 8/27.) One of the highlights of the hot streak, and one of the lowlights of the Cubs season, was the three-game sweep the Astros pulled off at Wrigley, beginning on Labor Day. Randy Wolf, tonight's Houston starter, was the winning pitcher in the series finale, throwing a complete game shutout in one of the better efforts of his career.

Carlos Zambrano returns to action tonight, having been sent to the sidelines 12 days ago with shoulder tendinitis. Z's last start, against this same Houston club in that same nasty series at Wrigley Field, only lasted five innings before he asked to come out.

Funny pre-game note via Gordon Wittenmyer's Twitter feed:

Astros sticking it to Cubs by every means possible -- including forcing the less familiar, bigger, nicer home clubhouse on them. 

Rob G. Update: Apologies for the server crash or whatever it was this afternoon...should be fixed now.

Tags: 
Gameday Open Thread
Submitted by Cubnut on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:00pm
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Comments

Submitted by crunch
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:18pm

this game certified untelevised?

Submitted by John Beasley
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:24pm

Team schedule is showing the game will be on WGN.

Submitted by crunch
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 7:05pm

the team seems to have taken up acting on the bob newhart show instead of playing the game on wgn.

lou looks like he's lost weight and is a lot funnier, though.

Submitted by Wes
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 8:34pm

Hi, I'm Larry the pitching coach. This is my brother Darryl, the hitting coach. And this is my other brother Darryl, the bench coach.

Submitted by John Beasley
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:28pm

Will be Day 1 of 16 straight days of games, at least. If the Cubs drew Game 1 of the NLDS on Tuesday, it could conceivably be up to 18. Let's wrap this bitch up as soon as possible.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:51pm

playoffs don't start until Wed, October 1st

http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/spor...

both NL series start on Wednesday and one AL series, the AL series between division champ and WC team will start Thursday.

Submitted by The Joe
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:47pm

Can anyone explain why it would be a nationwide blackout, for mlb.tv?

Submitted by SotoBunts
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:52pm

From everything I've picked up online today:

(1) ESPN has exclusive rights to the Sunday Night timeslot.
(2) Because of this, the game cannot be aired on EI or .tv or any nationwide broadcast
(3) The end result is that it is on WGN, but on the Chicago local feed.

Submitted by The Joe
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:52pm

Weird. They un-blacked it out. Now it's up.

Submitted by Ryno
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 7:44pm

It's not on my feed. >:(

Submitted by Rob G.
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 6:55pm

http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/spor...

Submitted by Rob G.
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 7:02pm

down 1-0 early in the 2nd, lost the first game already.

Submitted by Hollinger
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 8:45pm

Somehow the game is on channel 676 on DirecTV.

Submitted by rokfish
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:32pm

holy shit

Submitted by superjimmer
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:33pm

yay!!!!!! No Hitter . . .

Submitted by crunch
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:35pm

awesome.

Submitted by rokfish
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:37pm

espn had the last 3 outs

Submitted by Wedge2
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:37pm

Fucking Awesome!

Submitted by The Joe
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:39pm

Fuck, I'm glad they unblocked this game. Hells yeah! Go Z!!

Submitted by Mister Whipple
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:41pm

It's so great to see a performance like that. We really needed a good outing from Z, but a historic outing is even cooler. Many props to the PChat crew. Tonight was as good as it gets.

Submitted by Jeff_Pico
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:42pm

Wow! Z with the no-no, speechless..Brewers lose 2 so the magic number goes down by 3 tonight. Am I correct the magic number is 7 now?

Submitted by jacos
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:44pm

Wow!

I'm 38 and Ive witnessed my first Cub no -hitter and I had my two sons watch with me.

Awesome!!

Please keep the magic going.

GO CUBS!!!!!!

Submitted by Chad
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:44pm

GO Z! WHAT A FUCKING GAME!!!!

QUIEN ES MAS MACHO? CARLOS ZAMBRANO ES MAS MACHO!

Submitted by Bleeding Blue
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:50pm

Well if I wasn't kicking myself for not making the trip to milwaukee before, I sure am now.

Submitted by nohit
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:53pm

Take that, CC! Z got his no-no in *your* house. Left the seat up, even.

Way cool, Z. Way cool.

Submitted by Indiana JJ
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:53pm

I would just like to say a few words...
FUCK YOU MLB.
FUCK YOU ESPN.
FUCK YOU WGN.

First Cubs no-hitter in my life and I don't get to see it except for last three outs. Oh well at least they didn't jinx it like every other time I've been watching ESPN and they cut to someones no-no bid.

Submitted by big_lowitzki
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:58pm

It wasn't WGN's fault.

Submitted by Mike Vail
on Mon, 09/15/2008 - 8:33am

Hey, at least you had power. My power went Sunday 2 p.m. e.s.t and is still out and could be out for days. If anybody taped or DVR'rd the game, I would love to get a copy. I only heard about the no-no because I was able to get 720 on am radio. Can only use a computer at work ;) Well done Carlos.
He did reinforce Ozzie's statement about Wrigley's shortcomings :cramped clubhouse, iffy infield & pitcher's mound, etc.,

Submitted by nohit
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 9:55pm

Also... Z posted a Game Score of 96, best in the bigs this year.

Submitted by big_lowitzki
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:00pm

That. Was. Awesome.

(but Orton still sucks)

Submitted by jacos
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:03pm

Some random thoughts and sights

I was wondering if one of the Cubs would sneek into Brewers clubhouse and take a dump in Fielder's locker. I'm sick I know.

When bullpen ran into celebrate one of the rookie pitchers had the pink back pack with the gum and seeds with him and brought to the mound. LOL

Z postgame interview with WGN-
-he knew Milt Pappas was last Cub pitcher to throw no hitter, said Pappas tells him at every Cub convention that he would be the next one to do it

-Len then gave Z the stage and Z said " I want to thank the Lord," and then Z stared into the camera " and the next stage is to win the World Series."

Amen.

Submitted by Charlie
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:17pm

Holy shit!

Submitted by Cubster
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:26pm

Looks like Z appreciates 12 days rest. Awesome performance.

ex-cub reliever update:

Winning pitcher in the phils game one, Scott Eyre. Scotty was our secret weapon.

Kyle Farnsworth blows up, gives up a grand slam to DeWayne Wise after the Tigers staged a comeback with a GS by Marcus Thames. Farnsy, still pulling the same shit.

Submitted by billybucks
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:29pm

I'm still getting over the Bears meltdown.

Did they ever decide what to do about the Cubs-Astros series?

Submitted by rokfish
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:34pm

i think this weekend means we should clinch at home
vs st louis probally
also means we would have a week to set every thing up
for playoffs.

Submitted by jacos
on Mon, 09/15/2008 - 8:26am

Cubs win next 4 they clinch against Milwaukee on Thursday, because I have tix for the game.

:-)

Submitted by Iowa Cub
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:39pm

Greatest Cubs game in my lifetime.

Let's give Zambrano plenty of rest until the playoffs start.

Any word on when a replay will be on TV so it can be recorded for posterity?

Submitted by artskoe
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 10:50pm

If this game had been played in Houston, yeah, maybe the same result, but the coolest thing is that it was played in Milwaukee. Since I live in Texas, for some stupid reason known only to Selig, all Astros games - home and away - are blacked out by MLBTV.com for my zip code. I live in Rangers territory. BUT since it was in Milwaukee, for some reason they allowed me to watch it. Now I have seen the last 2 no-hitters in Cubs History, this one from my comfy 'puter' (as Bozo would have said) chair, and Milt Pappas' in person with my now deceased Dad in '72! Go CUBS!!! Way to go Z!!

Submitted by 10man
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 11:04pm

So anyone still worried about how Z would bounce back or the Cubs chances to win the division? Anyone? Anyone at all?

Submitted by CA-Phil
on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 11:15pm

He did have a sore shoulder and threw 110 pitches...I keed I keed....

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