Thursday, September 7, 2017

20

Holy cow! The Cubs won in dramatic fashion Wednesday night, beating the Bucs 1-0 behind a quality start by Jose Quintana and a game-winning, ninth inning, RBI triple by Alex Avila.

The Cubs finally broke through in the 9th, with Rizzo taking a one-out walk. Recent addition Leonys Martin, who made his Cubs debut as a pitcher on Monday night, pinch ran for Rizzo and promptly stole second. After an Ian Happ strikeout, Avila's two-out triple scored Martin and gave Chicago the lead for good.

Quintana had his best outing since his first as a Cub, tossing six scoreless innings while striking out six. Rondon, Strop, and Davis held the Pirates hitless over the final three innings. Davis's save was his 29th of the season.

The series wraps up tomorrow; the North Siders return to Wrigley on Friday for a nine-game homestand against the Brewers, Mets, and Cardinals.

Go Cubs go!


The Cubs have 23 regular season games left including seven each versus the Cards and Brewers. While the math makes our collective brains hurt here at CMN, and while some folks are looking only at the Cubs' win column, remember that if the Cubs win tons of games in September, then the Brewers and/or Cardinals would also be losing -- at least a few games -- to the Cubs.

The Cubs Magic Number to win the NL Central equals:

163 - (Cubs wins + losses of NL Central rival with fewest losses).

As of now, that's 163 - (76 + 67), or 163 - 143. 163 - 143 = 20.

Thus, the Cubs Magic Number is 20. Follow CMN on Twitter!

3 comments :

Unknown said...

Cubs just won 8-2 over Pirates (Thurs Sep 7). So it's down again to 19, right? The 1-0 victory was on Wednesday not Thursday, so the posting is confusing. Also Cardinals are currently down 1-0 in San Diego. If they lose it will lower yet again today (Thursday Sep 7), right?

Unknown said...

Correct...I think it was updated in the morning. Needs to drop one more for tonight's W and hopefully another if the cards lose.

Unknown said...

It's now down to 18 because St. Louis just lost.