Not only did Joe Borowski finish off today's efficient and tightly played 5-4 win over the Pirates, for his tenth save of the season, but literally within five minutes of the game's end, while I was still on my drive home, the skies opened up and a heavy thunderstorm started pouring rain on us. This is being written a little more than an hour after game's end and it's still raining and looks like it will for a few hours yet.
Mark Prior pitched the way a stopper (in the old sense of the word -- a pitcher who stops losing streaks) should throw, making only a couple of mistakes, and if anyone faster than Troy O'Leary had been playing right field, the two runs in the second would have been prevented -- O'Leary couldn't catch up to a popup that landed just fair, and then he let it get by him for a double. Frankly, Sammy Sosa can't return a moment too soon. I'd love to see O'Leary succeed, but honestly, he's showing us the reasons that the Expos released him at the end of last year.
The Cubs had only five hits; luckily two of them were homers with runners on base, and the Cubs, in fact, had only one other baserunner all day -- something you won't see every day, either: a four-pitch walk to Mark Grudzielanek in the eighth inning.
Once again, Tom Goodwin and his .170 average clogged up the leadoff spot, going 0-for-4. After Dusty's fishing buddy advised him to lead off Mark Bellhorn, I think he did that exactly twice.
After we had ten of us out there last night, Jeff & I were the only ones holding down the fort today. A nice young couple from Iowa with a toddler and a baby sat with us. The toddler, amazingly enough, slept on the bleacher bench for about half the game, even when someone accidentally tripped over him.
Addendum to last night: the Cubs give out free Dunkin Donuts coffee coupons when they score in the 4th inning, which they did last night. Carole likes collecting these. Apparently Ernie found about 30 of them sitting on one of the newspaper boxes outside the bleachers after the game. Caffeine fix for the rest of the summer!
Mark Prior pitched the way a stopper (in the old sense of the word -- a pitcher who stops losing streaks) should throw, making only a couple of mistakes, and if anyone faster than Troy O'Leary had been playing right field, the two runs in the second would have been prevented -- O'Leary couldn't catch up to a popup that landed just fair, and then he let it get by him for a double. Frankly, Sammy Sosa can't return a moment too soon. I'd love to see O'Leary succeed, but honestly, he's showing us the reasons that the Expos released him at the end of last year.
The Cubs had only five hits; luckily two of them were homers with runners on base, and the Cubs, in fact, had only one other baserunner all day -- something you won't see every day, either: a four-pitch walk to Mark Grudzielanek in the eighth inning.
Once again, Tom Goodwin and his .170 average clogged up the leadoff spot, going 0-for-4. After Dusty's fishing buddy advised him to lead off Mark Bellhorn, I think he did that exactly twice.
After we had ten of us out there last night, Jeff & I were the only ones holding down the fort today. A nice young couple from Iowa with a toddler and a baby sat with us. The toddler, amazingly enough, slept on the bleacher bench for about half the game, even when someone accidentally tripped over him.
Addendum to last night: the Cubs give out free Dunkin Donuts coffee coupons when they score in the 4th inning, which they did last night. Carole likes collecting these. Apparently Ernie found about 30 of them sitting on one of the newspaper boxes outside the bleachers after the game. Caffeine fix for the rest of the summer!