Bill Roper's Journal

I headed down to Wrigley Field where I met a friend of mine and we watched the Cubs beat the Marlins by a final of 5-2, with all of the Cubs' runs coming in one inning, as did all of the Marlins' runs. Other than those two innings, it was a really well-pitched game by both clubs.

While that was going on, the Cardinals beat the Phillies 3-2 to extend their winning streak to nine games, which is rather remarkable. They remain one game back of the Cubs in the NL Central.

This is being interesting.

I had hoped to see a good game between the Cubs and Dodgers tonight and I did. It turned out that the Dodgers were having a bullpen game, so we saw a *lot* of Dodger pitchers, some of whom were more effective than others. When the score got to a 7-6 Cubs lead, I commented that it would be good if the Cubs scored some more runs, as I didn't expect that to be the final score.

That was when the bullpens settled down and no more runs were scored.

But the weather was lovely, the conversation was good, and the Cubs won. :)

It was Opening Day for the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Given that K is deep in rehearsals for the last show of her high school tenure (and the state of our passports, which remain stubbornly expired) going to FKO really wasn't an option, but going down to Wrigley was.

Gretchen dropped me at the Swift terminus, which meant that I didn't have to worry about finding parking. My Ventra card, however, refused to work at all. The nice fellow at the station passed me through on that end, but warned me that I should buy a return ticket at Addison (because the machines at Skokie weren't working correctly, it seems) when I got there so that I would not be waiting behind the drunks after the game. I thanked him and headed on my way.

It was annoyingly cold today, although I'm told it was less cold than last year. My upgraded seats seem to be an actual upgrade and the Cubs won, mostly through the kindness of the opposing pitcher who kept issuing walks, including one with the bases loaded. So the Cubs won 3-1 over the Padres.

And I am warm again now, after some excellent chili for dinner and a lot of time in a house with central heating. :)

I headed down to Wrigley Field for the last regular season game, which is something that I like to do when there's no reason not to. (Conflicts occasionally arise, but not so much when the last home game is on a weekend.)

Lots of Cubs were getting rested, since the game didn't have any real effect on either team. There were some good plays, a lot of good pitching (or bad hitting), and the game went to extra innings tied 0-0.

At which point, the Cubs picked the Reds' ghost runner off second to start the bonus baseball festivities. I had never seen this happen before.

The Cubs then proceeded to do the most Cub thing possible and give up three runs in the top of the tenth, having eliminated the ghost runner before throwing a pitch. The Cubs got the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the tenth, but that's as far as things went on the way to a 3-0 Reds win.

But it was fun, the conversation was good, and the weather didn't suck, which was a major improvement over a lot of late season games that I've been to.

Meanwhile, the Cards beat the Giants to finish up the season tied with the Cubs. I guess the Cubs officially finished ahead of the Cardinals, because the Cubs won the season series. Given the amount of annoyance the absence of tie-breaker games is about to be in the NL wild card race, I think I'll just call this "tied for second" and be happy that it doesn't affect anything except draft position. :)

After yesterday's great burst of offense, the Cubs had much less offense and lost to the A's 4-3, although Ian Happ did manage his second homer of the game off the A's excellent closer in the bottom of the ninth. The solo homer in the ninth would have been much more impressive if the Cubs hadn't been trailing by *two* runs though.

But an old friend and coworker joined me for the game, the conversation was good, and there was a lot of good defense.

Just not as much offense as required.

The Cubs are six games out of the last wild card slot in the NL with 11 games left and needing to pass two teams to get in. This is not an enviable position except as compared to the Cardinals, who are *seven* games out of the last wild card slot and needing to pass three teams, those including the Cubs...

I suppose it was a good baseball game tonight. The Cubs played tremendous defense and hustled on the bases as they built a 3-0 lead over the Pirates through the first seven innings. But even though he only had around 90 pitches, it was time for Taillon to leave with the top of the order coming up.

And the reliever proceeded to give up two dinks and a homer, allowing the Pirates to tie things up. And then another homer to give the Pirates a 4-3 lead, which they extended to 5-3 in the ninth. Ick.

Among the odd plays in the game was the odd 6-4-3 out at first, as Pete Crow-Armstrong beat the throw at second on the double play attempt, but Amaya could not manage the same at first. You don't see that often.

I saw an excellent baseball game at Wrigley Field tonight after an 85 minute rain delay. Unfortunately, the Cubs lost to the Brewers 1-0, but it was an excellent baseball game.

However, I am now *very* tired, so I think bed is in order.

That was quite a baseball game.

It was the second game between the Cubs and the White Sox at Wrigley. The Sox got out to an immediate lead, as the first batter homered on the first pitch. The Cubs tied it up, but then the Sox got six singles in one inning and scored four runs to take a 5-1 lead.

The Cubs scored a pair and then later scored three more runs to lead 6-5.

This lasted one pitch, as Paul DeJong hit the first pitch of the next inning out of the park to tie the game. That's how it remained until the bottom of the ninth when Mike Tauchman hit a line drive homer to center field that I would have sworn would fall short, but it didn't, and the Cubs won 7-6.

It was a very full Wrigley Field. :)

I went down to Wrigley Field today to catch my second game of the season, which was Cubs vs. Padres.

Imanaga, the Cubs new Japanese pitcher, was tonight's starter and he was quite good, as he has been all season. So was the Padres starter, which wasn't what you would have expected checking out his ERA before the game started. The Cubs led 1-0 going into the top of the eighth. Imanaga had thrown nearly 100 pitches and was about to start his *fourth* time through the order, but he'd been pretty effective. And new Cubs skipper, Craig Counsell, is supposed to be one of the smartest managers in the league. So when he trotted Imanaga out to start the eighth inning, I was surprised.

The Padres brought on lefty pinch hitter Luis Arraez in the nine hole to start the inning and you might have thought that this would be a great time to bring on a lefty reliever. Counsell did not. Arraez promptly singled to right.

Lesser managers might have looked at the situation and said "Let's not put Imanaga in a position to lose this game." But Counsell looked at how Imanaga had retired the Padres leadoff hitter, Jurickson Profar, three times so far and figured that he was likely to see Imanaga retire him a fourth time.

He did *not* figure on seeing Profar hit a two run homer to give the Padres the lead.

Dobbin having departed the barn, Imanaga departed the game.

The Cubs managed to tie up the game in the bottom of the eighth and held the Padres scoreless in the top of ninth.

And then it started to rain, but not so heavily as to halt the game.

Which was good, because Busch hit the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth out to give the Cubs a 3-2 win.

It was a rather spectacular ending.

Elsewhere, in less happy news, Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras was injured by the backswing of a Mets batter and will be out from 6-8 weeks with a broken arm.

*sheesh*

It was a complex day. K was feeling crummy and stayed home from school today. She seems to be doing much better now.

I have figured out how to tap dance around the problem that I'm having with some of the code at work. This is good and we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

It was a cold and miserable day. It snowed. The White Sox postponed today's home game. The Cubs played this evening when it had (mostly) stopped raining and snowing.

The weather did improve enough that I was able to make the long drive into the city to pick up the previous round of tape transfers and drop off the last of the ones that need to be digitized. And having gotten those tapes back means that I can return one of them to the owner at the eclipse fest in Indy this weekend.

And then there was the best news of the day: the pathology report on my little polyp came back and it was benign. That's what I'd expected, but confirmation is a very good thing. :)