I've been to plenty of great games over the years but this may have been the best I've ever been to. The Cubs beat the Indians 6-5 today with their 3rd straight walkoff win. Some other great games I attended in the past few years include last year's Cubs/Pirates game on August 3rd, 2008 where the Pirates came back from a 3 run hole in the 8th inning only to have Reed Johnson crush a 2 run shot in the left field bleachers in the bottom of that inning. Alfonso Soriano followed up with a home run in the next at-bat. Another great game I attended was a White Sox/Red Sox game on July 9th, 2006 which lasted 19 innings. This game almost felt like it would last that long but luckily it didn't with the Cubs bullpen being used a ton early in the game.
The Cubs got down early in the 1st as the first two Indians batters doubled off the wall giving them a 1-0 lead. Luis Valabuena hit his 2nd home run in two games in the 2nd inning to give the Indians a 2-0 lead and Lilly would hold them there for the next few innings. In the bottom of the 5th inning, Derrek Lee hit a 2 run shot in the right field bleachers to tie the game up at 2. Derrek Lee has now gotten a hit in 17 consecutive games. In the top of the 6th inning, Jhonny Peralta belted his 3rd home run of the year deep in the left-center field bleachers to put the Indians back on top. In the bottom of the 6th, Micah Hoffpauir hit a 2 run homer in the right field bleachers (correctly predicted by Bob Brenly) to give the Cubs a 1 run lead. In the top of the 7th inning, Jose Ascanio came in and got the first batter out but then proceeded to walk the next batter and gave up a single to the batter after that. Lou then put in Sean Marshall to face the lefty Travis Hafner who got a bloop single. Then Lou came out and put in Carlos Marmol who struck out the first batter he faced on a 3-2 count but then walked in a run after going 1-2 on Jhonny Peralta tying the game at 4.
The game would stay tied at four all the way until the 13th inning when Luis Valabuena belted his 3rd home run of the series and 4th home run of the season in the left field bleachers off reliever David Patton breaking the tie. In fact, all of Valabuena's home runs this season have come in Chicago (1 at US Cellular Field, 3 at Wrigley). Patton preceded to get the final out sending the game to the bottom of the 13th. The first batter for the Cubs was Kosuke Fukudome who ripped a single to right center for a leadoff single. The next batter Koyie Hill struck out but Kosuke stole 2nd and went to 3rd on an overthrow by catcher Kelly Shoppach. The next batter Andres Blanco singled right up the middle just past a diving Luis Valabuena scoring Fukudome and tying the game back up at 5. Why the Indians had the infield in on that I don't know. They could have easily gotten the out at first (still would have scored the runner but prevented Blanco from reaching) if they did not have the infield in. Aaron Miles then stepped up and hit a bloop single down the 1st base line sending Blanco to 3rd. Indians closer Kerry Wood then threw a wild pitch way outside scoring Blanco and giving the Cubs their 3rd straight walkoff win.
The Cubs go for the sweep and their 4th straight victory tomorrow at 1:20 PM on Comcast SportsNet. Randy Wells will go head-to-head against Jeremy Sowers. Wells needs to pitch like he did in his first few starts and go deep into the ballgame with the bullpen as tired as it is. There is a slight chance of rain tomorrow but it looks like it will be another nice day.
The Player of the Game today has to go to Kosuke Fukudome who went 4-5 in this game and had that big leadoff single in the bottom of the 13th inning as well as the stolen base/passed ball.
The St. Louis Cardinals moved into first place today with their 7-1 win over the Kansas City Royals and the Milwaukee Brewers 9-5 loss to the Detroit Tigers. The Cubs moved into 3rd place alone with the Chicago White Sox beating the Cincinnati Reds 10-8 today. So the Cubs are now tied in the loss column with the Milwaukee Brewers and only 2.5 games out of first place now. So a pretty successful day again for us.
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