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Well, no one said this was going to be easy. No one with all their faculties intact, at least. The Cardinals drop game 2 of the 3 game set at Wrigley in the dusky almost-light of a bygone era.
The aggressive, three true outcomes Cubs offense racked up 8 strikeouts and 2 walks against Shelby Miller. He hadn't surrendered a free pass in his previous 3 starts.
The Cubs also had their third true outcome working tonight, getting home runs from Welington Castillo and Matt Szczur to post a 3-0 lead. Shelby hadn't allowed a home run in his previous 4 starts.
After looking pretty sharp for the first 4 innings, Shelby ran into some trouble in the 5th. Matheny had a quick hook tonight, double-switching in Tyler Lyons and Oscar Taveras (for Grichuk) with two on and one out. Lyons was able to escape the jam.
Miller's final line: 4 1/3 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 85 pitches.
Here's Shelby's pitch selection on the night, courtesy Brooks Baseball
| Pitch Type | Velo (Max) | H-Break | V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swings / % | Whiffs / % | BIP (No Out) | SNIPs / % | LWTS |
| FT (Two-seam Fastball) | 94.6 (96.4) | -7.60 | 6.57 | 18 | 12 / 66.7% | 9 / 50.0% | 0 / 0.0% | 3 (2) | 9 / 60.0% | 0.66 |
| FF (Four-seam Fastball) | 94.4 (96.0) | -4.47 | 8.74 | 48 | 30 / 62.5% | 19 / 39.6% | 8 / 16.7% | 4 (2) | 26 / 59.1% | -0.37 |
| CU (Curveball) | 77.1 (78.2) | 6.62 | -7.22 | 11 | 4 / 36.4% | 3 / 27.3% | 0 / 0.0% | 1 (0) | 3 / 30.0% | 0.24 |
| FC (Cutter) | 87.7 (89.4) | 0.95 | 2.22 | 8 | 7 / 87.5% | 5 / 62.5% | 2 / 25.0% | 2 (1) | 5 / 83.3% | 0.76 |
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Pitch classifications provided by the Automatic MLBAM Gameday Algorithm. |
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In the 6th, Matheny was rewarded for bringing in Oscar with a lead off single. Matt Carpenter followed with a basehit of his own. Oscar was chased home by a Jon Jay ground out and Our Guys were on the board, now down 3-1.
Then Matt Holliday mashed his 20th dinger of the season to tie the score and induce much gloating among those who were certain Matt Holliday would hit 20 dingers this year. I had my doubts.
Carpenter also picked up 2 more walks to bring his total up to 94 on the season, for those of you out there tracking his progress to the century mark.
The Cardinals last best hope was the 8th when Matt Holliday led off with a double, but was stranded.
Carlos Martinez made an appearance in the 8th after Randy Choate LOOGied Anthony Rizzo into a flyout. El Gallo gave up a double to Jorge Soler and IBB'd Luis Valbuena before getting off the hook unscathed.
That's 16 1/3 straight scoreless innings for Carlos Martinez with 16 K. #VivaElGallo pic.twitter.com/1y8ayRjmQC
— Craig Edwards (@craigjedwards) September 24, 2014
The Cubs were able to get to Pat Neshek in the 10th, his second inning of work. A Rizzo ivy double set up a Castillo walk off hit into the right field gap. Pretty big night for a guy missing an L.
The rubber game of the series features John Lackey taking on Jake Arrieta tomorrow under the gloomy Wrigley twilight. First pitch at 7:05 Central.