Cubs 1 @ Giants 2
Box Score / Highlights / Condensed Game
Sixteen under – if we were golfing, we would be at the top of the leaderboard, but in baseball it just stinks. The Cubs showed a few signs of life here and there, with a couple of good defensive plays early in the game, a couple good at-bats, and Castro didn’t get tagged out 5 feet in front of the bag.
The Good:
Our pitching was decent tonight. Garza channeled a vintage Carlos Zambrano with a decent outing and lots of emotion. Camp gave up a hit, Marmol posted zeros across his frame. The runs charged to Garza were flukes, really. A grounder between first and second led off the inning, but after that, nobody should have got on. A lucky bloop just sneaked past a dizzy Soriano and Mather’s laborious play on Pagan’s swinging bunt should both have been outs. But I digress, we’ll save the defense for the “Bad” section of this post.
DeJesus’ toothy grin was a nice sight on my television set after he hit that solo shot in the fourth. He was also Campana’s accomplice on a double steal.
Tony had two stolen bases, but was caught once. He was looking a little slow compared to Buster’s arm, but Buster does have a cannon
The Bad:
Once again, Soriano makes the “Bad” section of the post. There was a bloop fly that could easily have been caught by Soriano, but instead, it landed right in the middle of him, Campana, and Castro. So what does Soriano do? Naturally, he lets the ball drop, continues half-jogging past it, and lets Tony pick up, turn 180 degrees, and 29-hop it past second to LaHair. Later, he tried circling under another bloop, which just grazed the edge of his glove and allowed the runners to advance.
Also bad is that Theriot got another hit against his former team.
Random Bits:
Eric Karros and Dick Stockton are quite the dynamic duo on the airwaves. I have never heard such an exciting, low-scoring game in my life. Good ol’ Dick doesn’t just announce the game – he shouts it. Stockton just would not let Soriano’s fielding disaster rest. Every time there was a lull in the game, he would bring it up, and we’d see a replay of Tony 29-hopping the ball back in with Dick saying how Soriano should have taken care of it. If we didn’t already know how bad Soriano was at fielding, we do now! Thank you, Dick, for clearing that up.
The vintage atmosphere of the game was amazing. Peanuts were only 5 cents! The throwback jerseys were fabulous. The only issue I have is that if we were really trying to be true to the 1912 era, batting helmets would have been nonexistent. But for some reason people are all worried about concussions now. Psh. Minor detail.
Summary:
The game was fun to watch. There was some good baseball played by both teams, it was a close one, but it’s too bad that Garza is now 2-4. But a pitcher’s win-loss column doesn’t matter, right?
