Free for all: "Rossy" presses his luck
Alec Mills finally gives up a hit (who saw that coming?), the Cubs can't hit and Remember This Crap hits a very fun summer
Remember the great game show from the 1980s hosted by Peter Tomarken called Press Your Luck? Of course you do, and not just because Tomarken did a full John Denver into Santa Monica Bay with his plane 15 years ago. (Kids, never go full John Denver.) You remember it because of the Whammies! And, because the great Elizabeth Banks brought it back a few years ago. She really is the best. But, never mind that.
Anyway, so where is this going?
Apparently, David Ross never saw the show, because yesterday, he thought it was a great idea to let Alec Mills’ soft-tossed 10 inning no hit streak against the Brewers ride in the eighth inning of a scoreless game.
Ross might as well have stood on the dugout steps yelling, “No whammies, no whammies, no whammies” for all the good his pressing his luck did for the Cubs.
Lorenzo Cain, a guy who looked pretty much cooked at the plate two years ago and who played only five games last year before opting out, took Mills deep.
NINE guys in the bullpen and after seven good innings of Kyle Hendricks dazzling the Brewers with soft stuff, Ross goes with a guy with softer, worse stuff? If hitting is timing, and pitching is disrupting timing, going from Hendricks to Mills is less than ideal. Which is quickly becoming the name of this year’s highlight video.
Less than Ideal: The 2021 Chicago Cubs, debuts October 1 on Marquee from 1:00 to 1:07 am, followed by six hours of My Pillow infomercials.
Given that the Cubs had one hit (again) at the time of that homer, it looked like that was going to be it.
But, as I told you on Tuesday, Brewers’ stud reliever Devin Williams is not right, and nothing proves it more than this:
And, by the way Cubs Talk, you don’t get to welcome guys to Chicago, that’s Bruce Levine’s job . Apparently .
After the homer, the Cubs gave Joc a waffle maker…for…reasons?
Looks like we went from Press Your Luck to Let’s Make A Deal.
Joc must have had a hard-boiled egg in his purse. After tearing up the Cacti League, Joc started the season 0-for-15. Well, of course he did.
So, Ian Happ gives waffle makers to guys after they “waffle” big homers? I like that it was still in the box this time. Maybe Joc can return it, or exchange it for a hammer?
Craig Kimbrel was dominant, again, and the game went to the tenth where Brandon Workman gave up a single to advance the stupid “start the extra inning on second” runner to third and then with Cain up again, Workman just turned around and threw the ball onto Banks Boulevard for another homer.
Well, I guess Cain hit it out there. By then I had blacked out.
After six games, the Cubs are 3-3 (and deserve it), and it’s always a good sign when your manager is already saying stuff like this before the game:
The Cubs hit three homers in the fourth inning of the series opener against Brett Anderson. In the 23 innings after they got five hits.
Five. In 23 innings.
Is that a lot? That doesn’t seem like a lot.
But hey, at least this team doesn’t have a history in recent years of having its offense vanish for painfully long stretches or anything.
The Genius was trending last night and I was hoping that maybe he caught shingles again, but it turns out it was for this:
I’d almost admire his candor if not for the fact that I loathe him with all my soul and that I’m enjoying his unintentional sabotage of the Sox season.
A new edition of Remember This Crap? is out and this time we discuss the crazy summer of 2001 when the Cubs spent most of it in first place with a team that was Sammy Sosa and 24 guys Andy MacPhail found at a bus stop. And yes, we do re-live the Angel Hernandez/Steve McMichael/Ricky Gutierrez game. And when you listen, you’ll hear that Chip Caray and Joe Carter did not “disappoint” on the call of the final play of the game. Man, they were awful.
And, if you haven’t signed up for a newsletter subscription yet (and why not?), I’ve extended the 15% sale through Friday. Because after all, I’m a helluva guy.