Game 37 Recap: Cubs 2, Brewers 4

Brew Who?

W - Anderson (2-5), 3 unassisteds, shifting the third baseman, the "tourniquet" stat.

L - Hendricks (2-3), lame no-hit bids, homerless streaks.

S - Jeffress (11), what I should do more often when doing recap drafts.

Things to Take from This Game.

1. Chase Anderson?!

Chase Anderson looked every bit as awful as his over-6 ERA suggested in the first few innings, with rockets getting hit all around the park. None of them dropped in, though, and he threw strikes, eventually settling in to a very less-than-dominating no-hit bid.

2. One bad inning.

Other than a Lucroy solo homer, Hendricks looked sharp and efficient through the first five. But he got knocked around in the sixth, with the big damage being a gap-splitting double by Chris Carter. Cahill came in to get eight straight outs and looked quite sharp doing it. Stuff-wise, the Cubs pitching looked better than the Brewers, most all of the night.

3. Late firepower

With two outs in the ninth, Chase Anderson suddenly remembered he was Chase Anderson. Blame it on going with an off-brand hypnotist. Heyward did what few thought possible, and barreled up a ball for his first home run of the season, just escaping the reach of the right fielder, Santana. Bryant followed with a no-doubter to left, but Jeffress then came on to K Rizzo and end the game. Those of us who stuck around to the bitter end appreciated this modest moment of drama in an otherwise stupid game.

Essential Questions

1. Is Heyward's bat waking up just as everyone else starts to cool off?

2. Is it too soon to worry that we might not be the most dominant regular season team in baseball history?

3. What literary wonders will we never get back from my lost fifth inning recap?

Game Recap

Top of 1st

What a sad little crowd in Milwaukee. Lots of Cubs fans in the mix, of course.
Aww, Chase Anderson writes the initials of his grandmas in the dirt behind the mound before each game. I do that with the chalkboard in my classroom before each class.
No, I don't.
Fowler hits one to within maybe a couple of feet of the wall, just-right-of-center where the fence angles. A very long out.
Heyward pops to Villar just behind second base.
Bryant also hits a drive to the furthest reaches of the park, and oh god, you're going to make me look up how to spell his name, aren't you....Nieuwenhuis makes a leaping catch at the wall, where it angles just-left-of-center. May have saved a home run. Nieuwenhuis.

Bottom of 1st

Villar swings over the top of a changeup, darting down and away from him for the first out of the night.
Citizen Gennett bounces one to Baez at third, who makes a nice backhand. Two quick outs.
First-pitch swinging, Braun bounces to Russell. An 8-pitch inning. You could hear Braun getting booed. In Milwaukee.

Top of 2nd

Rizzo smokes one just to the right of the second base bag, where third baseman Aaron Hill is shifted, to make a diving catch. Anderson isn't fooling anyone.
Zobrist ground to Carter, unassisted at first.
Russell K's trying to catch up to a fastball up and in. Somehow, miraculously, Anderson has retired the first six he's faced. Skill had little to do with it.

Bottom of 2nd

Lucroy walks.
Carter bounces to Baez, who takes a step back on it and tosses to second to just get Lucroy for the force.
An odd non-play, where Santana fouls a ball away and the broken bat comes flying to the mound, clipping Hendricks. No harm done.
Santana with a check-swing strikeout.
Nieuwenhuis (YES! SPELLED RIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY WITHOUT LOOKING! SPORTS BLOGGING AWARD FOR TRANS!) up, hits a one-hopper right at Zobrist

Top of 3rd.

Baez hits one that kicks off the glove of the drawn-in Aaron hill, over to Villar at short, who throws on for the out.
Montero grounds to Citizen Gennett
Hendricks strikes out swinging. How in the world is Anderson pitching a perfect game?

Bottom of 3rd

Hill chops one to Russell who charges, throws low to Rizzo, who can't quite catch it. Hill credited with a single.
Anderson attempts to bunt, and gets one down to Rizzo who fires to second for the force. They almost turn two, but Anderson is running hard down the line.
Villar chops one to Zobrist, charging, who makes a nifty little flip to Russell, but again the effort to turn two comes up just short.
Gennett strikes out swinging.

Top of 4th

Fowler lines another one on the button, but right at NIEUWENHUIS.
Heyward bounces to Gennett
Bryant bounces out to Hill. This is the crummiest perfect game ever thrown through four, as the Cubs are BABIP'ed to death.

Bottom of 4th

Braun bounces one off the plate to Russell, who makes the play with time to spare
Lucroy takes a fastball over the plate and crushes it out into the bleachers in left. A serious shot. 1-0 Brewers.
Carter K's swinging.
Santana K's swinging. Hendricks has looked really sharp, minus one pitch...

Top of 5th

Rizzo grounds out to Carter, unassisted
Zobrist bounces one to Hill, who again is shifted to the right of second base.
Russell K's on a foul-tip. Anderson settling down, sort of. This is very dumb.

Bottom of 5th

Nieuwenhuis K's swinging.
There's too much going on to recap, between a fast game and huge parachat. And so I was feeling guilty about how unuseful, undescriptive, and just sort of generic the game recap had become. I therefore committed myself to elaborately, lovingly describing Aaron Hill reaching out to flare a little blooper pop that Zobrist caught in shallow right field. And then I lost this inning worth of recap to the Internet Gods. This is my sad effort to recreate that forever-lost piece of baseball prose. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make a game-recapper.
Anderson then grounded out to Zobrist.

Top of 6th.

Baez bounces into an easy 3-1.
Montero walks, and we have our first base-runner. Ridiculous.

I notice my game recapping beginning to take on the form of Trump Tweets. LAME!

Failing to get the bunt down, Hendricks K's swinging.
Anderson starts working his changeup more effectively, and Fowler goes down swinging.

Bottom of 6th.

Villar walks
Gennett hits a broken bat flair into shallow left-center, and we have runners on 1 and 2, no outs, heart of order coming up.
Braun pokes one down the right field line, on a breaking piece off the plate. Nice hitting, as Rizzo was way off first base. runners on 1st and 3rd, 2-0 Brewers.
Lucroy popped foul to Montero behind the plate. A very badly needed out.
Carter lines one into the right-center gap. The throw goes through to the plate to try to catch the second runner, but it's a bit off line and a bit late. 4-0 Brewers.
Cahill in to pitch, gets Santana swinging over a low and away slider.
Nieuwenhuis (I AM SO GOOD AT THIS!) rolls out to Zobrist.

Top of 7th

Heyward pops out to third. This time, with the lefty up, Hill actually is playing a normal third base.
Bryant with a routine fly out to Santana in right.
Rizzo K's looking at an inside fastball. The Brewers entire defensive team just stands around, oblivious to it being the end of the Cubs half of the inning. Because Brewers.

Bottom of 7th

Hill flies to Heyward down the right field line.
Anderson bounces one off of Cahill, to Russell, who gets the out
Villar grounds to Zobrist. Cahill doing some nice damage-control tonight.

Top of 8th

Zobrist smokes one to dead center, with it landing at the very base of the wall and just sticking there. Kind of neat. The biggest joke of a no-hitter seen in years is no more. Double.
Russell pops out to second.
Baez flies out to right, Zobrist advances to third.
Our sad excuse for a threat ends with Montero rolling out to Villar.

Bottom of 8th

Gennett with an easy fly out to Bryant in left, who catches it while looking effortlessly handsome.
J.D. thinks Braun (booed again when he comes to bat) looks a bit bigger this year. Ahem.
Cahill gets Braun to chase one in the dirt for the strikeout. Real nice work tonight by Cahill.
Lucroy also K's swinging. I am beginning to wonder if Len genuinely hopes his "tourniquet" stat catches on.

Top of 9th

LaStella pinch hits for Cahill and hits a lazy fly to center. Anderson stays in for the ninth.
Fowler grounds to Carter, unassisted.
When all hope seems lost, Anderson throws a middle-in fastball, 0-2, and Heyward launches it out to right-center. It just gets Santana's homer-robbing effort. Homerun, Heyward, 4-1 Brewers.
Bryant follows it up by taking another middle-in fastball, a bit higher in the zone than Bryant's, and hitting it into the bleachers in left. 4-2 Brewers.
Jeffress in for Anderson.
Jeffress K's Rizzo swinging over something down and in. Game over.

Parachat Recap

1st Inning

Tolerance for extreme cold and heat
Everyone arrives very suddenly.
JAG: a triple shy of the cycle.
An extensive discussion of hot dogs.
Replacement Dates
Hot dog brands.
Carlos has many lawns to mow. This could either be an offensive immigrant joke or an offensive sexual joke.
This is the most extensive discussion of hot dogs I have seen in at least a month.
Len really is into men in uniform, as johann observes.
Who would we trade Rizzo for? Not many, it turns out.

2nd Inning

Pinch-dating.
Turning down a straight-up Trout for RIzzo trade. (Seriously?!?!)
Going out with people older or younger than you.
Women cutting WHAT off of me?!?
Mini-Trans.
Mini-Crunch.
Fast parachatting = need fast fingers for recapping. Or coke.

When was the last time we had more than nine in parachat?

When it was in Tijuana.

Using parachat to date all of TCR.
Hot taeks
the Odor punch.
TCR comics.
Mark DeRosa, good-looking manager.
Trump Supporters
Freddi Gonzalez firing: about as unfair as celebrating after a home run being a ~punch2~able offense

3rd Inning

Joe Nathan Hot Dog.
This is what happens when you get drunk at an auction.
Videos of parachatters: Jacos walking someone else's dog, Crunch making corn fuck, Biz playing kickball, Whipple doing... uh... this....
More from Crunch...
Johann has high self-esteem
I don't know what's wrong with Ryno.
Jacos identifies what ought to be a parachat sound.
JAG had a rat terrier named Carlos.

4th Inning

Sinead O'connor riding her bike, eating deep dish pizza with a spoon.

<1.0 Cosbys

Wouldn't it be Cosbies?

No, that would be the award. (Ugh, thanks, CTSteve.)

Kids doing the P.A.: decided to be Cute.
Jared Fogel jokes. Ouch.
Jeffrey Dahmer jokes. Ouch.
Klemen's is a sausage that links people together. Nice, JAG.
Testing out what Trans is willing to recap, and what he's not. (Sorry, Carlos.)
FBI closes down Parachat.
More Jared Fogel jokes. I'm going to hell for this recap.
Transgendered peers.

5th inning.

I lose an inning's worth of recapping with an unfortunate click.
To paraphrase: THE NSA joins us. Jacos starts police sirens. People want to know where I pee. We give JAG crap for her latest date. My internet handle abbreviation wouldn't go over well in north carolina. Live-blogging a booty call. NSA propaganda in Parachat. Terrorists hanging out having fun. A full dozen (plus a couple fakes) in parachat. Amazing.

6th inning.

Helping me re-recap what I lost in the recap from the fifth. Thanks, jerks.
Kyle Hendrix.
"The plump reliever with perpetually flushed cheeks"
Hendricks hits his spots. In bed.
People named Les. People re-named Les.
Impersonations.
Annoyance at losing this game.
Things to placate a pissed off Trans: Boobs, bees, gay witchcraft, and Worse than Trump. (In about that order, too!)
Block! Parachatting like it's 2009.
This game is worse than....
My deep and abiding concern for Dom Booty Calls.
What REALLY happened in that lost Fifth Inning recap?

7th Inning

They always leave before I can say goodbye.
I care about all humans.

What is Chance?

ah. Who is Chance.

Block will be back in 2018.
Chittownians, Chitters, Chits, and Chiites.
Jugglers, Buffalo, and Juggalos.
Jacos tells some vile story/joke
Vile band names, song names. I don't understand anything that is happening now.

8th Inning

Winging the Nuts.
- celebrating a hit.
- RALLY CAPS
- Who kicked out jacos?
- Marvel Movies
- Waiting for the Summer Soldier.
- Parachat curses.
- Sobriety.
- Drug papers.
- Pain pills and piss tests. You transgressive F____rs.

9th Inning

LaSTELLLLAAAAAAAA!
Finally getting things to ~thunder~ about.
Maddon sacrificing zoo animals after the game.

Last-minute hopes.

Last-minute hopes, dashed.

Cubs fall to 1-1 in games recapped in 2016.

Cubs MLB Roster

Comments

Recent comments