Volstad finally bags elusive ‘W’
Chris Volstad waited more than 13 months for a victory, so a couple of rain delays were nothing.
Volstad finally got that elusive win Sunday as the Cubs shut out the Colorado Rockies 5-0 at Wrigley Field.
There were a couple of rain-related waits, a 2-hour, 23-minute delay before the game started. Another downpour stopped the game after the Cubs batted in the eighth inning, making Volstad wait a little longer for the “W” to become official next to his name in the box score.
Umpires called the game 30 minutes after the second delay, giving the Cubs the victory after eight complete innings.
For Volstad, it was his first victory since July 10, 2011, when he was a member of the Marlins. He had gone 24 starts without a win, coming up 4 short of the all-time record.
“It’s only fitting the day took pretty long, right?” said Volstad, who received a dousing of various beverages from his teammates. “Before the game, I’m used to that. It’s happened to me already a couple times this year and Florida, obviously. You never know what the weather’s going to do.
“With the tarp being pulled in the ninth inning, it was like, ‘Come on, let’s just get this over with.’ But a good game all around.”
Even with all that, Volstad said the streak wasn’t that big a concern to him.
“I guess a little bit,” he said. “But like I’ve been saying, I guess, I want to throw well and keep the team there and have the team win the game. The streak, I guess that’s for you guys more than it is for me. A little sense of relief to get it over with.”
Volstad pitched 6 innings of 3-hit ball to improve to 1-9 with a 6.28 ERA. Cubs batters got him single runs in the second and sixth innings before adding 3 in the eighth. In 8 of Volstad’s previous 13 starts, the Cubs had scored 1 or fewer runs eight times.
“He pitched one heck of a game today,” said manager Dale Sveum, whose team is 49-77. “He kept the ball on the ground, kept the ball out of the air. He was actually getting some weak contact on that sinker and did a great job. He had his off-speed working, pitching down and away. He just had a great day.
“It was great for him. That’s a huge monkey off his back. I think the team was incredibly happy for him. When that game got called right there, you could see emotion on the players and everything with him getting that win.”
Second baseman Darwin Barney, who had an RBI single in the sixth, echoed what Sveum said.
“It was fun,” Barney said. “He was real excited. Thing about it, when you’re an offensive position player and you have that game when your team wins and you contribute and have a couple knocks, you go home feeling pretty good about yourself.
“He hasn’t had one of those days. He hasn’t had that day where everything worked out. They didn’t get a cheap hit off him today. The defense picked him up. I was really happy for him. He’s been pitching pretty consistently of late and has just been getting some bad luck here and there.
“Today, everything came together. We gave him a little bit of a lead and extended it in the (eighth) inning. It was good. He liked that little shower we gave him.”
bmiles@dailyherald.com