This Cubs win was astonishing, strange ... but true
If the art of fiction isn't dead, the Cubs and Pirates went a long way toward killing it on one wild and crazy Friday at Wrigley Field.
One of the joys of covering baseball is that you have a chance to see something you've never seen before.
Well, in the Cubs' 11-10 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, we saw nearly the exact thing twice.
Take one: Bottom of the 10th inning, Matt Szczur up for the Cubs with the bases loaded and one out. Szczur hits a high fly to shallow right field. Starlin Castro breaks for home and is thrown out easily by Gregory Polanco.
Take two: Bottom of the 12th inning, Matt Szczur up for the Cubs with the bases loaded and one out. Szczur hits a high fly to shallow right field. Starlin Castro breaks for home and ... Polanco falls down and the ball drops for a game-winning single.
"It's not how we drew it up, that's for sure," said Szczur, a rookie outfielder making a rare start. "I told myself I've got to do it this time."
Asked about his déjà vu moment when he saw the second ball go up and then drop, Szczur said: "I was thanking everybody. I was like, 'Oh, thank God.' "
Castro was a happy guy, too. Manager Joe Maddon emphasized that Castro and third-base coach Gary Jones worked together to make the right decision the first time, even though Castro was out.
"He (Polanco) could have easily airmailed that thing, and then obviously you're happy," Maddon said. "I was very, very good with the decision by Jonesie and Starlin."
Castro was all smiles in the victorious clubhouse.
"It's fun," he said. "We're really having fun. We're not quitting. We never quit. We go up there and win the game, no matter what inning."
Castro said both decisions to go were good.
"It's back to back," he said. "It's going to be tough, but I'm ready to score on that. I've got to do it again. I took a chance."
The victory papered over some issues for the Cubs, who won their fifth in a row to improve to 20-15. Starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks had a 7-1 lead in the sixth inning and was an out away from getting a quality start. But he never made it out of the inning, as the Pirates scored 4 runs.
The Cubs were one out away from winning it in the ninth inning. Closer Hector Rondon struck out the first two batters he faced, but Josh Harrison doubled and Francisco Cervelli singled home the tying run.
"We really should have put that away earlier," Maddon said. "We played really well today. Don't be deceived. We played really well today. We did not pitch well today. We played a good game of baseball. I'm really happy with the way we played."
The Cubs got home runs from their new power tandem of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. Bryant hit a 3-run homer in the third inning, and Rizzo blasted a solo shot to the back of the under-construction right-field bleachers in the fourth.
But all of that ended up a footnote on a day any fiction writer would be hard-pressed to create.
"It could take me awhile to describe the day's events," said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle.
"Impossible," Maddon said. "Impossible. Déjà vu all over again. Unbelievable. The way the whole game played, that was remarkable. And we got lucky. We got lucky."