Cubs Heroes and Goats: Games 88-90

For those of you who are fans of amusement parks and have never been to the Six Flags parks in Texas, I have one piece of advice: Plan a vacation to go there and visit them. Both of the parks there are great and we had an absolute blast while we were there. It was strange to walk through the park and have every song that was playing in the park make some sort of reference to Texas, but it kind of became the running joke after a day or two. "Hey, it's another song about Texas. Who would have guessed?"

That and all of the hotels that we stayed in (three of them over the course of the trip) had waffle irons that made waffles that came out looking like the state of Texas. It was quite humorous. But I'll never forget this vacation.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me in my quick vacation recap. And now, it's back to the charts and numbers that you know and love, starting with a quick summary of the Friday and Saturday games:

Game 88 (Friday, July 17 - Braves 4, Cubs 2):

• Superhero - Kyle Schwarber (.177). Picked right up where he left off after his first trip to the big leagues.
• Billy Goat - Pedro Strop (-.351). He's had a lot of good moments this season, but he's also had the most "kaboom" moments as well, it seems.

Game 89 (Saturday, July 18 - Cubs 4, Braves 0):

• Superhero - Jon Lester (.294). A no-hitter through seven is a pretty good way to come back from the All-Star break.
• Billy Goat - David Ross (-.067). Didn't even get his walk that he seems to draw most games.

And as for Sunday...

Graphs for Game 90 (courtesy of Fangraphs):

Stats for Game 90:

Writer's Note: The daily selections of the three Heroes and three Goats are based solely on the top three and bottom three WPA scores for the game. The selections are not based on my subjective opinion.

THE THREE HEROES:

• Superhero - Jake Arrieta (.296). His streak of Hero podium appearances is now at seven, six of which have been at the top of the mountain.
• Hero - Jonathan Herrera (.035). Had a big pick-me-up single with the bases loaded and two out in the second.
• Sidekick - Jorge Soler (.055). It's good to see the big guy go yard.

THE THREE GOATS:

There was a surge in pitcher bumps during the past four games as three of the four had pitchers' hitting that was moved out, including Arrieta's -.081 hitting in this game. There have now been 22 bumps for pitchers, with 19 coming from the Goats and three from the Heroes. By comparison, there were 19 bumps from the Goat podium for the entire 2014 season, so that mark is going to be shattered quite handily.

• Billy Goat - Anthony Rizzo (-.063). It's still weird seeing him at the top of this podium, especially when he's only been at the top of it four times this season.
• Goat - Dexter Fowler (-.012). It came down to the little things on Sunday, and Fowler's inning-ending flyout in the second proved to be too much to come back from.
• Kid - Kris Bryant (-.006). "Hey Jake, thanks for that bump. Look what you did to me, man."

The big change on the chart has Arrieta solidly in second place, while the cellar looks pretty much the same as it did a week ago.