Can anybody hit?
The pitching's hurt, but the offense has been just, plain bad
In order for the Cubs to avert a rare Pissburgh sweep at Wrigley, it took something even more unlikely. For Dansby Swanson to get on base multiple times. His homer and then his base running were key in the Cubs comeback.
The Pirates haven't swept the Cubs in Chicago since April 14-17, 2017 when the Cubs were all still hungover from the previous October (and November's) World Series. The winning pitcher in the final game of the sweep? None other than Big Jimmy Taillon.
Taillon somehow pitched seven innings in that one despite allowing seven hits and three walks. The Cubs led 1-0 in the eighth when Koji Uehara relieved Jon Lester and made a mess of things, walking John Jaso to leadoff the inning, then allowing a double to Adam Frazier, walking Josh Bell to load the bases and then giving up an RBI single to Jordy Mercer. (Ugh, remember what a shitty player Jordy Mercer was?).
Hector Rondon got Starling Marte to ground out to Javy who threw home to force Frazier. Andrew McCutchen grounded to Anthony Rizzo but Rizzo's throw home was late. Joe Maddon challenged the call, but lost. David Freese hit a sac fly to score Mercer, and then got future Team Italy manager Francisco Cervelli to ground out to end the inning.
The craziest part of this inning? Tommy LaStella was paying center! Good lord, Joe.
The rally not only got Taillon off the hook, it put him in line for the win. Justin Grimm allowed a three run homer to Frazier in the ninth and the Cubs lost 6-1.
So what does any of that have to do with the current Cubs? Nothing, really. Other than Taillon started the Cubs yesterday and left the game down 5-2 after giving up three homers.
Two of the homers were wind aided, and Jordan Bastian of Cubs.com seemingly wanted us to just pretend they didn't happen to Taillon, but I'm pretty sure they did.
During the Cubs' rally they had this moment where Alex Bregman challenged a 2-1 pitch in the seventh that had been called a strike. Check out how after the challenge he turns to ask Pirates' catcher Joey Bart what Joey thinks, and Bart mouths, "Ball."
They were both wrong.
On the next pitch you got to see something you don't see very often.
Dansby tagged up and scored even as the infield fly rule was called.
