Faithful, Too: “Game 61L - Almost Perfect, But Not Quite”
Added 2025-06-05 19:04:50 +0000 UTCLife comes at you fast. With one out in the bottom of the 6th, Matthew Boyd, whom I argued in my last post is the best active pitcher on the Cubs right now, had a perfect game going. No hits, no walks, and his teammates hadn’t committed any errors. It was looking like roses, except for one problem: the Cubs offense hadn’t had a hit since the first inning. In that inning the Cubs had three straight singles to start the game but somehow failed to score.
I didn’t watch that first inning but checked in during the aforementioned bottom of the 6th. The score was 0-0. Then Boyd walked a batter. There goes the perfect game…but then he picked him off first! But…then he gave up a hit. There goes the no-hitter…but at least he left him stranded! But…in the bottom of the 7th he gave up a solo shot on his first pitch. There goes the shutout. Boyd gave up a couple more hits and one run in the 8th and was run out after pitching arguably his best game of the year. To go 7 1/3 innings and give up only four hits, a walk, and a couple runs should be enough to get you a victory.
Sadly, the Cubs sandwiched the innings in which they actually had hits by going 0-21 with two walks in innings 2-8. A minor rally in the 9th ended in a less-than-triumphant return from pinch-hitter King Tuck, who unfortunately weakly grounded out to end the game with runners on the corners. Cubs lost 2-0. The two positives from this one were Tucker’s return after that jammed finger and Boyd’s continued great play. Oh, and a third would be an amazing PCA diving catch to keep Boyd’s perfect game going in the 5th. Let’s win the final game in this series before heading off to face the best team in baseball this weekend: the surprisingly scary Detroit Tigers.
