You’re welcome, Brewers. Way to waste it on a night that you lose badly to the Cardinals (who clinch the NL Central in the process).
The Cubs played spoiler to the Phillies tonight, pitching the heck out of the game, and winning a close one. Winning, you’ll remember, is good actually.
The Cubs’ offense wasn’t doing much tonight, with Christopher Morel’s solo homer and Yan Gomes’ run-scoring double the only RBI-producing events. They had a couple other decent chances that didn’t turn into anything, and a lot of that is just the product of facing Zack Wheeler (and Connor Brogdon is pretty darn good, too).
Marcus Stroman was fantastic again, completely in control for his seven innings of work. A full 18 of the 21 outs he recorded came by way of strikeouts or groundballs. He just keeps hitters so well off balance with his diverse pitch mix, pitch shapes, and ability to command all four corners of the zone.
Speaking of all those groundballs, Stroman wasn’t alone …
Full box score.