How to you prevent your bullpen from blowing a 3rd straight game? You don't use them. That is kind of what happened in Chicago on Easter Sunday during the 4-1 Cubs victory over the Nationals.
A Notre Dame wide receiver pitched a great game for the Cubbies, and the Nats offense struggled again. Jeff Samardzija pitched 8 2/3 innings of 3 hit baseball, giving up only 1 run and striking out 8.
The Cubs manager wanted to take him out for the last batter but the crowd went nuts and after he was back in the dugout Adam LaRoche hit a 2 run homerun to cut the lead to 4-3. Another tough decision for a new manager, and the wrong decision. (4 hits, 3 earned runs)
Marmol came in walked one, but finished off the Nats as the crowd breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Zimmermann pitched a good one (6 hits, 1 ER) for the Nats but a couple of fielding missteps gave the Cubs 2 runs. Wilson Ramos got anxious when a runner was stealing and he threw the guy out before he caught the ball causing the ball to run back to the backstop and the runner to advance to third where he was sacrificed in.
Then Jayson Werth, who plays right field like he is fielding batting practice, jogged over to a ball hit to him and it went right by him advancing the runner to second, which turned into a run.
Once Zimmermann left the Cubs tacked on a few extra runs on Mattheus.
Ian Desmond continues to be the only consistent offense for the Nats. In the first and 3rd game of the series, the Nats totalled 8 hits...Desmond had 5 of them. Can anyone else get a hit? Jayson Werth may never get one.
Next up, the 3-0 Mets...
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