After receiving the worst news of the young season, the Cubs still had to take on the Diamondbacks in a closed dome at a comfortable 74 degrees. Cubs radio broadcasters were questioning why it wasn’t open? It wasn’t open last night, so I’ll save my foil hat for another topic.
Jason Hammel took to the mound but it seems Jean Segura doesn’t care who’s pitching because he led off the bottom of the first with a double but was unable to score. He was able to keep his composure through five innings despite giving up two walks in the fourth and a throwing error that Nick Ahmed tried to take advantage of but was thrown out at third by Rizzo. The sixth inning sees Segura lead off with a single to right field and then steals second base. He scores on a Paul Goldschmidt liner to Dexter Fowler. After six, Hammel would finish with a respectable 1.5 ERA giving up four hits, one run and striking out six.
The Cubs bats were almost silenced in this close game for the ages. Diamondbacks Robbie Ray starts off the third by walking both Russell and Ross. Hammel would try to bunt them over to no success but reached first on a force out. Rey would walk Fowler, then Heyward scoring the first run of the game. Zobrist would ground into a force out scoring Hammel. As for Runs that would be all she wrote for the Cubs today. Rey would complete six innings turning it over to Tyler Clippard, Daniel Hudson and Brad Ziegler to not only complete the game but stop the Cubs from scoring another run.
Pedro Strop would follow Justin Grimm in the eighth and would you guessed it, give up a double to Segura. Goldschmidt would step to the plate and send a sharp ground ball to Fowler scoring Segura to tie the game. Ziegler would finish the Cubs in order in the top of the ninth. Travis Wood came into the ninth to retire David Peralta and subsequently was removed for Trevor Cahill who would give up a single to Wellington Castillo. Chris Owings would pinch run for Castillo and would advance to second. With two outs and a man on second, Yasmani Tomas would send a walk off line drive to left scoring Owings and winning game two of the series. Giving Cahill the loss and Ziegler the win.
While the Dbacks had the right to celebrate, neither team ran the bases very well and made similar costly mistakes that prevented both teams from scoring more runs. While they can’t win them all, had either team been less eager to grab an extra base, the outcome would have been much cleaner. Had the Cuns taken advantage of the Dbacks mistakes instead of making the same ones, they would be on a four game winning streak. But instead the lost in dramatic fashion in the bottom of the ninth, 3 – 2.
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