Sunday, September 13, 2020

11

HOLY COW! IT'S A NO-HITTER FOR ALEC MILLS! Mills dominated the Brewers on Sunday, facing only 29 batters and keeping all but three off the basepads (9 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 5 K). Caratini and Bote each drove in three, and it was all over after the Cubs put up five in the 4th.

Mills was calm, cool, and collected -- after the game he said he didn't realize he hadn't given up a hit until after 6 and that it really didn't sink in until after 7.  He threw 114 pitches -- 74 for strikes -- in the effort, the Cubs' first no-hitter since Jake Arrieta's on April 21, 2016.

Jason Heyward continued his strong season, reaching base in 4-of-5 plate appearances (.293 BA, .947 OPS). More importantly, the victory moved the North Siders 4 games ahead of the Cardinals, who lost to the Reds.

The first place Cubs now head back to Wrigley to kick off their final regular season homestand:  two games against Cleveland and three against the Twins.  48 games down, 12 to go.

Go Cubs go!


Image Credits:  Chicago Cubs

8 comments :

Dave Purpura said...

How is the Cubs' magic number still 13? We're four up in the division with 12 games to play, so shouldn't it be nine? Or is it 13 because the Cardinals still have 20 games left?

RFBleachers said...

Dave,

Here's the scoop. If the Cards win out, they'd finish 40-20. If the Cubs win out, they'd also finish 40-20, and neither team would win the division outright.

So, in that scenario, the Cards would have to lose at least one game, and finish 39-21, for the Cubs to win the division outright.

That makes 12 Cubs wins plus 1 Cards loss, for a CMN of 13.

Of course, it could be 11 Cubs wins and 2 Cards losses, or 10 and 3, etc. This formula at the bottom of our main page takes care of all potential scenarios.

Go Cubs go!



-RFBleachers

Unknown said...

I believe it's based upon both teams playing the complete season and yes the Cardinals have 8 more games left to play compared to the Cubs

0000 said...

The cardinals only have 18 games left. The magic number should be 11 not 13

Nathan Powell said...

18 scheduled, but if it’s close after those 18 I’m sure they’ll play the last 2 to make it 60 total games played

0000 said...

How would they it not a open date left

0000 said...

They didn’t play two games against the tigers. Those games can’t be made up. Their isn’t a date open for them to play those games. The cardinals only have 17 games left. Those two games count as half games which make the magic number 10 and 9 games if it was the brewers

RFBleachers said...

MLB reserved the right to make the Cardinals & Tigers make up those two games if needed for tiebreaker purposes. If necessary, that would almost assuredly take place on September 28.

Since the Cards could still play a full 60 game schedule, we're basing the CMN on that. We love the 58-game optimism (and its subsequent positive impact on the CMN!), but we're not in the business of adding to the CMN, only subtracting.

Here's hoping the Cards play themselves out of the race and render their schedule irrelevant.

Go Cubs go!