Cubs' Kris Bryant christens new Wrigley Field bleachers
Who better than Kris Bryant to christen the new bleachers at Wrigley Field?
There might have been a little symbolism at work in Monday night's first inning as the Cubs started on their way to a 4-3 victory over the New York Mets.
Dexter Fowler led off with a walk, and Bryant crushed a 2-1 pitch from Jacob deGrom to the back of the new and bigger bleachers in left-center field. It was his first Wrigley Field homer and second of the year.
Bryant may own those bleachers for some time, being a right-handed hitter with big power potential.
“That ball was properly struck,” said Cubs manager Joe Maddon, whose team inched back above .500 to 16-15.
The right-field bleachers aren't quite ready, but left-handed hitting Anthony Rizzo staked his claim on them by depositing the next pitch into the hard-hat zone in right.
Both young players are part of the Cubs' “core,” so each may end up owning his own part of the bleachers.
“I'm perfectly fine with it, “ said Rizzo, who has 7 homers. “I'm sure everyone's excited about that. We talk about it. It's really nice for him to get that monkey off his back here at Wrigley.
The Cubs righted themselves after a tough weekend in Milwaukee, where they lost two of three. They dropped three of four in St. Louis before the Milwaukee series, so the front office had a get-together Monday.
Chief among the topics was the Cubs' beleaguered bullpen, which has been getting hit around of late.
Things went better Monday, with Justin Grimm and Zac Rosscup each tossing a scoreless inning in relief of Jon Lester (6 innings, 3 runs) and in setup of closer Hector Rondon.
Team president Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer may have to look for bullpen help, but they want to maintain some perspective, too.
“It's obviously been frustrating,” Hoyer said. “We've had a couple good stretches this year with the bullpen. We've had a couple too many bad stretches. Obviously that road trip was a brutal bad stretch.
“I do thinkyou have to have some perspective on it. Bullpens are volatile. When you feel you have a great bullpen, you're obviously a couple bad outings away from having a bad one. We need more length out of our starters to make the (bullpen's) job easier and hope it turns around. At some point, you have to talk about fixes. You can't have perspective forever. At some point, you have to make some decisions. Right now, we're hopeful we'll get things going in the right direction.”
Lester improved to 3-2 with a 4.10 ERA as he continues to round into form. However, he's been tough on himself.
“I stink,” he said. “You talk about your own expectations. My expectations are more than anybody could put on me. The biggest thing is we won. You look at that, everything is fine. We obviously didn't play very well on this road trip. Coming home, the bleachers open for the first time and everybody was excited. You want to get off on the right foot. So that was good.”