A Tip of the Recap June 13th

The Cubs withstood an almost 3-hour rain delay to walk off a winner in the bottom of the 9th and win 4-3 over the Reds.

The Good

Starlin Castro was the hero tonight with a walk-off single with 2 on and nobody out in the bottom of the 9th. Kris Bryant doubled to lead off the inning and Miguel Montero was then HBP, which set the stage for Castro’s heroics. Castro finished 1 for 4 with 2 RBI for the day (the other was via an groundout); he now has 31 RBI on the year.

Kris Bryant is on a tear now and had another big day at the plate, going 3 for 4 with 3 runs scored (including the winning run) with 2 doubles (11 on the year now). His last hit in the 9th would have been a single for a mortal man, but Bryant stretched it into a double with his wheels. He is now up to .297 on the year and has a 10 game hit streak.

Miguel Montero has been on quite the power surge recently and that continued tonight with another HR (his 9th, a 2-run shot). He is now 2nd on the team in HRs and has 25 RBI to go along with his .252 AVG.

Kyle Hendricks deserved better and he was on cruise control when the game got delayed. He went 5 innings and gave up just 4 hits (1 solo HR to Votto) with 0 walks and 7 Ks. He was only at 57 pitches through 5 and was poised to go deep into the game, which was sorely needed with an overworked pen, but you can’t control the weather.

Justin Grimm came in and stopped the bleeding that James Russell caused when he started on the mound out of the delay. In fact, Grimm, Wood, Strop, and Motte each pitched a scoreless inning of relief with Motte the only one to give up any hits (2 singles with 2 outs).

The Bad

The rain was big bummer and it turned into a 2 hour 48 minute delay that resulted in the game not being finished on Fox in markets outside of Cincinnati and Chicago. It also cause the pen to work on a night where Hendricks was poised to possibly give them most of the night off.

James Russell was bad tonight and turned the 3-1 lead he was given out of the delay into an 3-3 tie after a single, followed by a 2-run HR by Suarez. Another single later and Russell was relieved of his duties for Justin Grimm (who like I said above, got the job done).

On Deck

The Cubs go for the series win tomorrow night at 7:08 PM (CST) and will again be televised nationally on ESPN. Jon Lester (4-5, 4.25) gets the ball and needs a big start after really struggling during his last few starts, while the Reds will counter with Anthony DeSclafani (5-4, 3.53).