April 15, 2015: In Person

This was supposed to be the Blackhawks preview edition, but as things turned out, I was in attendance at the Cubs game Tuesday night in Wrigley.  Being at a live sporting event in person deserves some attention.

The Cubs were coming off 2 come from behind wins.  As I bought the tickets today, and knew who was on the mound for the Cubs, and remembered how he pitched against this team last year in Wrigley, I thought there may be some more magic in the air.  Arrieta no hit the Reds for 3 innings on this night, and then had his one bad inning.  The Reds pushed across 3 in the fourth, and that was all she wrote; there was some excitement though.

First off, how sweet is it to have a scoreboard at Wrigley?  Yes, the original beautiful historic scoreboard is still there in center field, but now, there is a big highlight screen in left field; it’s like a 50 ft HD TV.  It’s great not only to see replays during the game, but also the between inning stuff, especially the old Cubs highlights.  On this night, there were highlights of Lee Smith and Milt Pappas, who sang the 7th inning stretch.  They also showed some live in game highlights of other games.   The even showed some great catch highlights, although personally my favorite is the blooper reels.  I don’t think it takes too much from the feel of Wrigley Field; it’s nice to have that mix of history and technology.  It looks like they’ve done a nice job with it, except it’s kind of hard to tell with the bleachers in the shape they’re in.  I guess we won’t know how it really look until they’re complete.

The Cubs did eventually make some noise in this one.  It took until the 8th inning… Once Kevin Gregg was announced on the mound for the Reds, I knew we had a chance.  Wellington Castillo hit a moon shot that barely made it in the basket for a 2 run homer.  This cut the lead.  The rally was still on with a Rizzo hit.  Soler stepped to the plate as the go ahead run.  They didn’t want any part of him.  He was walked on 4 pitches.  It was one of the unintentional intentional walks.  Coghlan had the chance to be hero, and he whiffed.
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The bottom of the 9th came, and in came Aroldis Chapman.  First pitch, 98 MPH.  This guy could bring it, but Castro was still able to pull a single past the SS.  Next up was Montero, who popped up on the first pitch.  Here’s another one of the Cubs acquisitions who isn’t doing well yet.  He’s not even hitting .100 thus far.  Matt Szczur, pronounced Caesar, drew a walk in a nice at bat.  Next was pinch hitter David Ross, who struck out.  Next up was Mike Olt, who struck out.  Game over.

What if that were Kris Bryant up there in the 9th?  Actually, there were a couple plays in this one, that I wondered if Bryant would have made a difference.  There were 2 mildly hit ground balls that eluded our 3rd baseman for the night, Jonathan Herrera.  These were both hit in the 3 run 4th inning for Cincy.  Would Bryant have snagged those?  Would he have been able to help get us more than 2 runs tonight?  I think the answer to both of those questions is yes.  Those questions will soon be answered… possibly next week at some time.

Until then, the Cubs play on, trying to win their 2nd series of the year tomorrow against the Reds.  It’s been an exciting start to the season, yet we’ve only just begun.  It was great to get to Wrigley early this year; I hope to get there a handful of times this year.  I can’t wait to see it completed.  I can’t wait to see if this team is in contention at that point.  The attention will turn to the Blackhawks tomorrow night, but I’ll have one eye on the Cubs… hoping they make things interesting this year; they already have been.