Chicago Cubs: Kris Bryant tickles his way to victory over Marlins

Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant played a very peculiar, and hilarious, role in the victory over the Miami Marlins Tuesday night.

Victor Caratini played a tremendously important role in the Chicago Cubs’ second-straight victory over the Miami Marlins Tuesday night. Not only did he come up with two RBI’s, including the game-winner in the bottom of the eighth, but he was the center of one noteworthy scuffle.

After Derek Dietrich drilled Caratini at the plate Tuesday night, both benches cleared. Normally, you’d see teammates standing up for their guy.

Kris Bryant had other plans.

https://twitter.com/Cubs_Live/status/994024821913784320

Ah, the scenery may change but the friendships remain. Starlin Castro and his fellow buddy Bryant wanted nothing to do with anything scuffle-related. So, Bryant did what only he could do at the time: Tickle his ex-teammate.

The tickling wasn’t the only thing Bryant did in the victory. He did manage to score two of the four runs on the night for the Cubs.

Meanwhile, Anthony Rizzo was the only Cub to record multiple hits on a night where the team only had eight total. But, the important thing with the Cubs’ first baseman is that he hit a pair of hits. His improvement is one of the keys to this club turning the corner offensively, and maybe this is the start of just that.

One interesting stat: The Cubs used a whopping seven pitchers in Tuesday’s win over Miami. Because of the fact that scheduled-starter Yu Darvish was scratched the day of the game, Jen-Ho Tseng was brought up from Iowa to get the nod. Darvish was placed on the 10-day DL due to flu-like symptoms.

Meanwhile, Tseng gave up the only three runs on the night in two innings pitched. The rest of the night was smooth sailing for the Cubs’ pitchers. Steve Cishek, Pedro Strop, Carl Edwards Jr. and Brandon Morrow all pitched an inning of hit-free baseball. Rob Zastryzny and Justin Wilson both pitched an inning and only gave up a single hit each.

Next: Cubs and White Sox set for 2018 Crosstown Cup

As we’ve seen so far this season, the Cubs’ pitching has actually been pretty incredible, aside from a handful of missteps. Now, it’s up to the offense to try and muster up more than the three or four runs they’ve averaged in recent wins.