Faithful, Too: "Game 16 L (Meh) and Game 17 HISTORICAL BLOW-OUT"

Friday night's game was one in which you just have to throw up your hands and salute both pitchers. Matthew Boyd's 1-1 record doesn't reflect how awesome he's been all year. Against the Dodgers a couple days ago, it really came down to one pitch in the sixth inning: a three-run blast to hot-hitting Tommy Edman. That's all the dominant Dodgers needed en route to a 3-0 shutout. Back-to-back poor offensive outings by the Cubs did not concern me. The first was a getaway game in bad weather. The second was against what on paper is the greatest baseball team of all time. But paper only means so much in baseball, or in sports, in general. When it comes to unpredictabilty, if the NFL has the slogan "Any Given Sunday" then I guess "Any Given Day" sum up the majors. No words better describe what happened at Dodgers Stadium on Saturday night versus what happened on Friday.

After a long day out, my girlfriend and I hit the hay fairly early for a Saturday night. I had been following the game a bit on my phone to see it was 3-0 in the top of the 7th with Happ on 1st. We watched the rest of the Cubs' 7th inning on my phone, and witnessed the following:

• Tucker single

• Amaya RBI single

• Busch RBI single

• Swanson RBI single

• Hoerner RBI sac fly

Cubs were up 7-0 and I figured that was a wrap on the highlights and game, so I just hoped there wouldn't be a historical late-inning collapse.

Well, history was made at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night, but it wasn't one I even considered before fading into slumber. The Cubs continued hitting in both the 8th and 9th innings, scoring an additional nine runs! Here is the output in those two innings alone:

• Kelly walk, 2-run homer

• Happ double

• Tucker 2-run single

• Amaya 2-run homer, hit-by-pitch

• Workman single (first MLB hit, congrats!), 2-run double

• PCA double

• Berti single

• Busch RBI double

The Cubs would go on to win 16-0, and according to Sport Illustrated: "in terms of shutout losses at home, Saturday's trouncing was the worst since the then-Brooklyn Dodgers' 15-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1898." 1898! 127 years ago! The 19th century! It's still early days, but it's hard not to get a little excited about the 2025 Cubs. When they lose, they bounce right back. They're beating the best teams in baseball (as well as the A's, wah-wah) with the best runs-per-game (6.6, a smidge past the Yanks' 6.5) and have the major's best run differential-per-game (2.4, which is a whopping 0.8 more than the second-best Giants).

Hope springs eternal, indeed. I will be optimistic, dammit! Let's go for the series-win, dammit! Let's keep winning, dammit!