As the Angels of Anaheim travel to play the Chicago Cubs of Wrigleyville Jared Weaver takes to the mound looking to go above .500 for his ninth win of the year. The Cubs and John Lackey look to stop that as John is also looking for his ninth win of the season.
John does start off quickly with an out and then gives a solo home run to Kole Calhoun. He gets the next two outs and continues that streak into the second retiring five straight with the last two outs of the second being strikeouts. Lackey continues to strike out the first two batters in the top of the third and retires his eighth straight batter.
Weaver would give up a full count walk to Anthony Rizzo but he would end the inning trying to steal second base. Jason Heyward grabs a two out single in the bottom of the second but doesn’t cross the plate. Weaver makes it a quick bottom of the third but not before giving up a leadoff solo home run to Wilson Contreras.
Lackey starts the top of the fourth and makes it a quick and positive one, striking out Mike Trout. Rizzo leads off the fourth with a double. Rizzo scores on Ben Zobrist’s double. Jorge Soler pushes him to third but Heyward pops out. Addison Russell sends a fly ball to Trout for a sac fly scoring Zo. Cubs are now up 3 – 1.
The top of the fifth starts and Lester gets the first two outs. But Ji-Man Choi’s ground ball out is challenged by Mike Sciocia and is overturned for the first hit for the Halos since the home run in the first. Lackey gets the next two outs to end the inning. Lackey leads off the bottom half of the inning with a ground out and Dexter Fowler pops up the first pitch he sees, but he’s out on fan interference. Kris Bryant takes the first pick yard for his 28th home run of the year. Rizzo then takes a 2-1 pitch for his 34th double of the year. Zo grabs a base on balls for Jorge Soler who sends a soft grounder to Pujols who tosses it Weaver who drops it for an error allowing Rizzo to score. Heyward goes down swinging to end the inning.
Cliff Pennington leads off the sixth with a walk and with one out gets caught trying to steal second which would have worked out better if he had waited on Kole Calhoun’s single to right. Jarod Weaver does not make it to the bottom of the sixth being replaced by Mike Morin and catches Russell watching strike three for the first out. Lackey gets called out on strikes to end the inning.
John gets right back into the groove by getting two batters to ground out and the last to line out. Fernando Salas joins the Halos in trying to hold off the Cubs in the bottom of the seventh getting Fowler to ground out to start it off. He then strikes out Bryant and Rizzo to end the inning.
Lester remains in the game for the top of the eighth making it a quick 1-2-3 inning. Another Angels pitcher A.J. Achter retires the only three batters he sees. Pedro Strop replaces Lackey in the top of the ninth getting the first out quickly. Almost as quickly comes the second out and with Chapman warming up, just in case the crowd gets out the seats and gets loud as Trout steps in the box and gets called out on strikes.
Go Cubs Go!
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