scorecard<\/a> in hand, I watched the Cubs stage a mighty comeback to win the game by a final score of 8-6.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\nRich Harden was on the mound for the home team and his 3.2 innings were as unimpressive as his final pitching line suggests.\u00c2\u00a0 What you cannot see on the scorecard is that he had no life on his fastball: a scary thought considering how dominating Harden normally is thanks to a blazing heater and an unhittable change-up.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Harden’s day got off to a mediocre start as the Marlins’ Cameron Maybin put the first run on the scoreboard in the first inning.\u00c2\u00a0 In doing so, the young centre fielder gave us a couple of opportunities to marvel at his \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcchicken wing’ style of running.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybin has an unusual affliction that makes his right arm flap around once he gets up to full speed, although it doesn’t slow him down all that much.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe the sight of Maybin winging his way around to score in the first inning simply put Harden into a spin.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever the cause, the Cubs’ starter didn’t look comfortable and a run of three straight walks followed by a hit-by-pitch resulted in him trudging off the field midway through the fourth inning.<\/p>\n
The Cubs didn’t recover until the sixth inning when they were able to take aim at the Marlins’ bullpen.\u00c2\u00a0 Hayden Penn struck out Geovany Soto to begin the inning, but he then walked Aaron Miles and injured himself when a Mike Fontenot single goaded him into changing direction too quickly.\u00c2\u00a0 As Penn nursed a sprained ankle, Burke Badenhop (great name, by the way) loaded the bases ahead of Ryan Theriot.<\/p>\n
It was a big moment in the game.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cubs were down 5-2 and announcer Len Kasper was well aware that failing to score at least one run from this position could fatally deflate the home team.\u00c2\u00a0 A sensible approach was needed; the worst thing Theroit could do is to try and do too much.\u00c2\u00a0 “We don’t need to get them all back at once”, cautioned Kasper.<\/p>\n
Thankfully for the Cubs, Theriot wasn’t thinking along those lines.\u00c2\u00a0 Badenhop started him with a changeup that the Cubs batter took for a strike.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcDamn’, Theriot may have said to himself, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI missed out on one there’. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcNo worries’, replied Badenhop. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWhy don’t I throw you the exact same pitch and you can have another go’. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcRighty-o’ said a cheerful Ryan.<\/p>\n
The Wrigley crowd erupted as the next pitch was driven out over the left-field wall.\u00c2\u00a0 Grand slam.\u00c2\u00a0 5-2 became 6-5 in an instant and the Fish were fried.<\/p>\n
Scorecard musings<\/strong><\/p>\nOne of the many reasons I like to keep score is that it makes you watch the game in greater detail; bringing alive some of the subtleties that are easy to miss otherwise.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
While concentrating on every plate appearance, Geovany Soto’s ploy to trick the Marlins’ batters shone through in all its cunning beauty.\u00c2\u00a0 When a pitch to the outside corner was the order, Soto would often stay in the middle of the plate, tap his glove on the inside corner and then swoosh to the outside in one movement.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it was the sound or the feeling, the act put a thought in the batter’s head that the next pitch was coming inside when the opposite was the case. \u00c2\u00a0Simple but effective.<\/p>\n
The top of the eighth inning was another case of simplicity being the key.\u00c2\u00a0 Carlos Marmol completely lost the command of his fastball and he walked the first two batters as a result.\u00c2\u00a0 Two runners on and no outs, the Cubs’ lead was under serious threat.\u00c2\u00a0 So Marmol (possibly on the advice of his battery mate Soto) decided to stick with his slider instead.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybin went down looking, Hermida swung through a slider in the dirt and the red-hot Jorge Cantu took slider one for strike one, fouled off slider two for strike two and then took slider three for strike three.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank you and goodnight.<\/p>\n
This run of simplicity didn’t quite stretch to my scorekeeping efforts.\u00c2\u00a0 Although there were no tricky plays to ponder, a key difference between the two MLB leagues was brought sharply into focus. National League games normally involve more work for a scorer than American League games simply because the batting pitcher requires NL managers to make more tactical substitutions.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew three lines were not going to be enough for the Cubs’ number nine spot when Carlos Zambrano assumed a pinch hitting role in just the fourth inning.\u00c2\u00a0 Thankfully I only needed one extra line in the end, although the double switches, as per usual, were less easy to note down.\u00c2\u00a0 My solution always is to note down all of the changes separately, in this case using the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGame Notes’ box<\/p>\n
Take me out to the ballpark (and shoot me)\u00c2\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\nIf you decide to watch\/listen to the Padres-Cubs game this Friday, you will be treated to the seventh-inning tradition of a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcTake me out to the Ballpark’ singalong.\u00c2\u00a0 This is led by a guest at Wrigley, normally a sportsman or celebrity of some kind.\u00c2\u00a0 Experience has showed that they fit into three main categories: good singers, bad but enthusiastic singers and the outright terrible singers.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The actress Denise Richards did the honours for the Marlins game and even the most charitable person would agree she belonged in the latter category.\u00c2\u00a0 She had the words on a bit of paper (always a bad sign) and possibly didn’t really know how the melody goes; it was hard to tell seeing as she mauled the tune so horrifically.\u00c2\u00a0 The guest is always interviewed by Len and Bob on the Cubs TV feed and Len did the decent thing by lying: “we thought you handled it great”. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tone-deaf Denise didn’t have a great deal else to say, other than talking about her reality TV show (her reason for being at the game, of course).\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe we’ll be luckier next time?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcNext time’ is this Friday (first pitch 19.20 BST) and, barring any unforeseen disasters, I’ll be watching the game.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re watching it too,\u00c2\u00a0why not\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u02dctweet’<\/a> along (maybe while keeping score as well).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My guide to this week’s early MLB games once again saluted the great service the Chicago Cubs (unknowingly) provide for British baseball fans.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no better way to begin a weekend than sitting down on a Friday evening, possibly with friends and a beverage or two, and watching a live ballgame from Wrigley Field.\u00c2\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[560,553],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-keeping-score","tag-keeping-score","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2811"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5556,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions\/5556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}