Game 30 - Cubs vs. Brewers

Game 30
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Kevin & Julie

Awww – Kevin & Julie couples night at the ballpark. Well us, and the parents with the 10 kids in front of us. They were kind of annoying, but I think I was just annoyed in general last night. It was a beautiful night. After a crummy day of rain and clouds (which cancelled Kevin’s skydiving attempt with his niece…), the sun finally comes out and looked to be a beautiful evening.

The Trading Deadline passed without any additional changes, so now the next watch will be the Aug 30 waiver wire. (Is that what it’s called??) BTW – did anyone see the picture of Kim DeJesus (David’s wife) chugging a bottle of champagne after the trade deadline passed? Haha. Saw it on twitter.

Hoping we don’t get swept by Milwaukee, so hopefully we can salvage one game. So pathetic. We started with tacos from Azteca D’Oro. (Kevin was disappointed with the D’Ags deep dish pizza on Tuesday night.) Got there right as Cubs were running onto the field. Perfect timing. Valbuena at 2nd base again, as apparently Barney is getting the day off?

In top of the 3rd, Betancourt doubled off the wall in left field. I thought Borbon’s throw to 2nd was really good – it bounced but was dead on, and almost got him. Nice job Julio! They got out of the inning after sacrifice butn, strike out and ground out. In bottom of 3rd inning, Rizzo belted a 2-run homer to deepest part of center field.

In the top of the 4th, the diminutive Gindl singled to left field and Borbon shows off his arm a little more with a laser to Wellington at home to get Lucroy out. Nice!! Bottom of the 4th and Castro hits solo homer to Waveland Avenue. You don’t see as many balls leave the park as in the old days (e.g. pre-bleacher expansion), so that’s always fun to see. Well, at least when it’s your team hitting it. DeJesus drove in Ransom, to make it 4-0. Still not a big enough lead with our bullpen – keep it going!!

5th inning, Kevin: “why do these games always slow down in the 5th?” Me: “I was just thinking the same thing.”

Top of the 6th, a few raindrops start falling. Then they become HUGE raindrops. Then the deluge hits. That all happened within 7 seconds. Umps wasted NO TIME, and called for the tarp immediately. They must have seen the radar. We’re like, um, we’re done. (It was about 9:00 and we figured it would be at least an hour until the game started again. Given the 3rd night game in a row, totally fine w/leaving.) I had an umbrella, but not big enough for the both of us. So poor Kevin got drenched as we walked home. Oh well.

As it turns out, the rain delay lasted 1 hour and 6 minutes. And Jackson came back out to pitch again for the Cubs! I was surprised at that. Although with the way our bullpen has been lately, totally understand this. The paper said if he went longer than an hour without throwing, they would’ve replaced him. He was able to start throwing at the 55-minute mark, so was able to stay in the game.

DeJesus doubled in bottom of 6th, scoring Ransom and Castillo. Ransom was in a 0-22 slump before doubling. Milwaukee scored 1 run in the 8th on a Lucroy double, but that was all the damage. Parker (2.49 ERA) came in to close it out in the 9th, giving up one hit and one walk, but no runs!! Hooray – we didn’t blow a save today!!! (22 on the year btw…)

Good News: Cubs won! DeJesus 2 Hits and 3 RBI’s – average up to .273 (which I think is highest on the team…). He’s actually batting .355 since coming off the DL. Only 6 men left on base!

Cubs July record: 14-13, their 1st winning month since going 15-10 last July.

Recap:

Cubs Win 6-1

My season record: Visitors 19, Cubs 11
Parking update: No update… I need to get back on Trish & John to provide this to me. Did he buy the new laptop yet??? I’ve been traveling too much and out of the loop. I’ll get back on this : )