The Carson Kelly and Aaron Civale game?
And, wouldn't it be cool if Carlos Santana had an Orlando Merced moment?
It had been a long time since any of this happened. The Cubs hadn't come back from a five run deficit (or a four run deficit for that matter) to win since May 25 in Cincinnati when they trailed the Reds 8-3 in the sixth.
You probably remember it as the Carjacker, Reese McGuire's, Cubs' debut, when he homered twice, including a game-tying homer in the eighth off of a guy who played a big part in yesterday's deficit, his now teammate Taylor Rogers.
Another Cubs' catcher was the hero yesterday, as Carson Kelly tied the game in the eighth with a homer, and then won it with a walk-off single to score Seiya Suzuki who started the bottom of the tenth placed on second as the Manfred Man(n).
Why wasn't Kelly's hit a double?
Because Seiya was on third, the only way Kelly could have gotten an extra base hit would be to have homered. And even then he'd have to complete his trip around the bases, as Robin Ventura could tell you.
I could have started the video at the point where Robin homers, but you'd have missed Bob Costas talking about how important Shawon Dunston had been to the Mets tying the game there in the 15th inning.
Ventura homers, but his teammates never let him get to second base even though he tries to wave them off. All he needed to do was get to first for the winning run to score, and he did. But he only gets credit for the bases he actually touched, so it's a "grand slam" single and he got just one RBI instead of four.
Could Kelly have gotten a double if Seiya had been on second base when he got the hit?
Maybe.
He's entitled to as many bases as it takes the winning run to advance, but he'd have to actually run to second base and touch it. If Seiya had been on second, and Kelly could have stiff armed his teammates away long enough to touch second, he'd have been credited with a double.
But Seiya was on third, so all Kelly could get was a single, even if he had run to second and stood there trying to get the official scorer's attention.
And because there were two outs he had to get to first. Say he'd hit it and stood there and admired it and Seiya scored and they just started celebrating, the Barves could have thrown to first and the force out there would have ended the inning and the run wouldn't have counted.
This is not to be confused with what happened to Marlins outfielder Jesus Sanchez, who was out on an intentional walk against the Cubs last year because as he was walking to first he heard he was being pinch run for and just turned and went to the dugout instead of going all the way to first and touching it.
Similarly, if there had been a runner on base behind Seiya, they would have had to run all the way to the next base if there was a force in place.
That never happens though, right?
Well, ever hear of Fred Merkel?
If you've never read Cait Murphy's great book Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History, you should. That whole season was insane. And you'll learn that the sequence of events that seems unbelievable in the above clip from Ken Burns' Baseball documentary series, probably isn't what actually happened. Specifically about the Cubs finding the fan who had the ball and wrestling it away for him. Oh, they probably did mug the shit out of a Giants fan. But, the Giants were convinced that the ball Johnny Evers showed the ump wasn't the actual game ball. But no matter how it happened, it did, and the game had to be replayed if necessary, and it was, and the Cubs won it, won the pennant and won the World Series that we heard so much about until Anthony Rizzo and his Immortals did something about it.
Anyway, Kelly only got a single. But man did he need it.
A career .229/.314/.383 hitter, Kelly was hitting .350/.407/.840 with seven homers and 21 RBI at the end of April.
But in the 76 games since then and before yesterday he was slashing just .235/.309/.351 with six homers and 22 RBI.
He's basically been Carson Kelly for the last four months, but the hot start had made his season totals look far better than what his impact has actually been.
He's now hitting .259/.350/.443 on the season, which is really good. But he hasn't been that for a very long time. He's a good catcher, he's just not much of a bat. But he was yesterday, which came in pretty handy.
We got to see the Cubs' debuts of Aaron Civale and Carlos Santana. Civale came in to fulfill his likely role as "well, this one's over, let Civale try to finish it so we don't burn out any more real pitchers in a loss."
He came in with the Cubs down 6-2 in the sixth. And he worked three innings. He struck out four, didn't walk anybody and allowed just one hit, and it was to Nick Allen who might be the worst hitter in the big leagues since Nicky Lopez is back at triple-A.
Civale did get a little help with two outs in the sixth when Petecrow made this ridiculous catch to rob Ozzie Albies of a double.
But the Cubs scored two in the sixth and then two in the eighth to tie it.
So Santana got to pinch hit in the ninth for Justin Turner who had pinch hit for Michael Busch in the seventh. (I don't mind Craig hitting Turner for Busch, but nobody out in the seventh seemed too early. There was a good chance Busch's spot would come around again, and it did.)
Santana is wearing his familiar 41, and if you have an incredible memory you'll recall that it's Mike Soroka's number. Did the Cubs just announce without announcing itr that Soroka's season is over? No. Even though it very well could still be. Soroka's going to throw an other bullpen and then go to Iowa for a game or two and then try to come back. But if he ever comes back, it'll be as number 99. He switched so Santana could have 41.
Ninety-nine? Has it ever been worn before? Actually, yes. Todd Hundley wore it in 2001 (which should have led the Cubs to burn it) in deference to his dad who wore 9 during his 10 years as a Cub. Actually, that's not completely true. Todd did wear 99 for his dad, but he didn't pass on 9 to do it. Damon Buford was still wearing it when Todd got here, and Todd was too cheap to buy it off of Damon. But Buford was released on May 16, 2001 and Todd quickly switched to nine.
So Taguchi also wore 99 during his epic six game Cubs' career in 2009. And current White Sox manager Will Venable wore it as a coach one year, and so did one of the Cubs' many hired-to-be-fired hitting coaches, Anthony Iapoce.
Santana came up right after Matt Shaw led off the ninth with a single, and you assumed he'd take a pitch or two, let Shaw steal second and then try to walk it off with a single.
Instead, he took a couple of pitches, Shaw didn't budge off first and then Carlos struck out. The inning ended with Shaw still standing on first.
Every time the Cubs add a veteran late in the season, my hope for them is that they have an Orlando Merced moment. Let's hope Carlos gets one, because it doesn't happen often. But when it does...holy shit.
Merced was in his ninth big league season when the Cubs claimed him on waivers, September 5, 1998. It was too late to put him on the playoff roster if they made it, but it wasn't too late for him to do something cool. This was back in the days of the 40 man September rosters (which was always absurd, but occasionally really fun), so you could stash plenty of vets on your bench, and that's what Jim Hendry signed Merced to do.
Merced was a good hitter, but he didn't have much power and he wasn't much of a first baseman or outfielder, so after seven seasons with the Pirates he started bouncing around from team to team. In '98 he started the season with the Twins and slashed a useful .289/.345/.422 for them before being traded at the deadline to the Red Sox with Greg Swindell for nobody you've ever heard of. The Red Sox didn't really use him, Orlando played in nine games in August but only got 12 plate appearances and drew three walks with no hits. They released him when rosters expanded and once he cleared, the Cubs picked him up.
He got just three hits in 10 Cubs at bats, but one of them was pretty memorable.
It came in the Saturday game of the mostly batshit insane weekend series September 11-13 at Wrigley against the Brewers. The final scores of the three games were 13-11, 15-12 and 11-10 with the Cubs winning the final two.
In that Saturday game, the Cubs scored two in the bottom of the second on a Mickey Morandini single that scored Sammy Sosa and Glenallen Hill.
Mike Morgan was in his second stint with the Cubs (and those never go well) and he took the 2-0 lead into the third and things went a little bad.
Bobby Hughes (who?) singled to start the inning. Brewers pitcher Rafael Roque bunted Hughes to second. Fernando Vina grounded to short but Jose Hernandez kicked it for an error. Mark Loretta singled to load the bases. Big Aussie Dave Nilsson tripled to clear the bases and give the Brewers a 3-2 lead. Jeff Cirillo doubled Nilsson in. Jeromy Burnitz homered to score Cirillo and himself and give Milwaukee a 6-2 lead. Marquis Grisson grounded out. And then Geoff Jenkins and Hughes hit back to back homers. Morgan got Roque to ground out to first to end it. Eight runs, seven earned, seven hits. 8-2 Brewers.
It stayed that way until the fifth when Dave Stevens (who had come in for Morgan to start the fourth--nice to see somebody woke Jim Riggleman up in time) gave up a two run single to Vina. It was 10-2!
In the bottom of the fifth, Jose Hernandez homered off of Roque to cut it to 10-3.
In the sixth, Glenallen Hill singled and Gary Gaetti homered to make it 10-5.
OK, the Cubs are kinda back in this.
Well...in the seventh Hamelin doubled in Jenkins and then Felix Heredia (no!) came in to pitch to Vina and gave up an RBI single. The Cubs did throw Vina out trying to go to second to end the inning.
Valerio De Los Santos came in to pitch the bottom of the seventh with a comfy 12-5 lead, and he made it decidedly less comfy.
He walked Lance Johnson, struck out Hernandez, and surrendered a double to Grace. With runners on second and third, Phil Garner elected to pitch to Sammy Sosa, who had hit homers 58 and 59 the day before. Sammy hit one into the lake to make it 12-8. And as the Wrigley crowd celebrated Sammy becoming the third player ever to hit 60 homers in a season, Glenallen dug in while Sammy was doing multiple curtain calls and Glenallen parked one on Waveland to just keep things roaring.
But the Cubs still trailed 12-9 in the eighth.
The Run Fairy somehow got through the top unscathed (thanks to an inning ending double play off the bat of Jeff Cirillo).
Future Cub Chad Fox came in for the Brewers, and Tyler Houston pinch hit for Scott Servais. And Houston homered! But the Cubs still trailed 12-10 in the ninth.
Terry Mulholland, who had pitched in the Friday game and had nothing, was back on the mound on Saturday. Mulholland is one of the coolest Cubs in history. The things he and Rod Beck did to their arms down the stretch in 1998 were legendary, they pitched EVERY DAY.
Terry got Burnitz and Grissom out and Beck came in to pitch to Marc Newfield (who?). Newfield reached on an infield single. Darrin Jackson came in to run for him, but Beck struck out the great Bobby Hughes.
And that's when the really fun shit happened.
Bob Wickman came in to try to nail the game down for the Brewers, and spoiler alert: he didn't.
Sosa greeted him with a single (a moral victory for Wickman), and Glenallen did the same. Riggleman had Gaetti bunt. What? Well, it "worked." And Mickey Morandini came up with the tying runs in scoring position. Mickey walked to load the bases.
Houston singled to right to tie the game, scoring Sammy and Glenallen. And Wrigley was a scene, again. Manny Alexander was due up, but he had some Sammy towel money to "guard" so Riggleman called on his new guy, Orlando Merced with two on and one out.
And that's when Orlando Merced wrote his own little piece of Cubs history.
Enjoy.
The whole video is great (even with tHom on the call for Fox), but my favorite moment comes when the Cubs are walking off the field en masse at about the 58 second mark. Look at Rod Beck. He won't be hard to spot. He was just the best.
And listen to the Cubs' comeback stats that Bob Brenly gives after that. Incredible.
The 1998 Cubs were not a particularly good team, but some incredible things happened to them, and they were fun as hell.
And my wish for Carlos Santana is that sometime in the next four (or dare to dream six) weeks, he has a one-off moment that leads us to writing 1,000 words about it 27 years later, just for the hell of it.
Oh, and about Mulholland and Beck pitching every day down the stretch. I exaggerated. But not by much.
Muholland pitched on September 2 in relief, came back four days later to make a start and pitch five innings, then made relief appearances two (two innings) and three days (one inning) later. He pitched in relief in all three games against the Brewers, then started on two day's rest (and pitched seven innings!). So, from September sixth to the 16th he made two starts and five relief appearances. In ten days!
He got four days off before starts on September 22 and 27, and went eight in both of them. The start on the 22nd was a win over the Brewers the day before the Brant Brown game. His start on the 27th was the final regular season game. Despite his nine strikeouts and three runs in eight innings, the Cubs lost 4-3 in the 11th. But mere moments after the loss, Neifi Perez homered in Colorado to beat the Giants and force game 163 the next day at Wrigley. And Terry pitched in that one, too.
In the final 22 games of the season, Terry Mulholland pitched in 11 of them, four starts and seven relief appearances, struck out 27 in 34 innings with a 3.44 ERA and allowed just one homer. Legend.
As for The Shooter?
Rod Beck pitched in 14 of those final 22 games! In 15 innings he won twice, had 11 saves and blew one save. That blown save was the Brant Brown game. He struck out 17, walked four, and pitched in and out of trouble with 17 hits. At one point he pitched seven times in nine days. And he pitched in five of the Cubs' final six games.
He had pitched three innings in the final game of the season in Houston, in relief of Mulholland, trying to clinch the division, but the offense couldn't get him a run, and the Astros eventually won on a Richard Hidalgo sac fly to score Jurassic Carl Everett in the 11th.
Beck had thrown 44 pitches.
And when the Cubs got to the ninth the next night in game 163 against the Giants, they handed a 5-2 lead to the two guys they trusted the most. Mulholland and Beck.
Neither had anything left. But they just had to get three outs before they gave up three runs.
And they did it.
