Chicago Cubs: 3 takeaways from San Diego Padres series
By Ryan Sikes
Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez provided the big booms for the Cubs on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The Chicago Cubs found themselves down in all three games and were able to get the big hit from one of their power hitters in the first two. On Friday, Rizzo came to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the third inning down 3-0.
FUN FACT: All four of @ARizzo44's grand slams have come at Wrigley Field.
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) July 19, 2019
Three of the four have been go-ahead blasts. #TeamRizzo pic.twitter.com/o4elRIEc77
Lo and behold, he got ahold of one and parked it into the left field bleachers to give the Cubs a 4-3 lead. Rizzo’s grand slam was the only conversion with runners-in-scoring-position in 6 opportunities.
Flash forward to Saturday and the Cubs found themselves down 4-3 in the bottom of the fourth inning with Javier Baez coming to the plate. I happened to be running outside in this heat (smart idea) and was listening to Pat and Ron on 670 The Score. Coomer called the home run but said Baez would go to right field.
He hit an absolute no-doubter to left-field to give the Cubs a 6-4 lead and that was all Jose Quintana and the Cubs bullpen needed to hang onto the victory. The team had 15 opportunities with RISP and converted on 4 of them on Saturday. So you could say that the Cubs should have scored more than 6 runs but, alas, it was enough for the win.
Trending. Team cannot bank on return of Ben Zobrist. light
On a lesser note, the Cubs got a key RBI triple for Robel Garcia in the bottom of the first inning, who is slashing 0.290/0.324/0.774 with 2 doubles, 2 triples, 3 home runs and 7 RBI’s in 12 games with the big league club. His slugging percentage is crazy high and super valuable for a team that needs consistency in scoring runs.