April13th Game’s Results and Analysis

April13^th Game’s Results and Analysis

San Francisco Giants 3- Chicago Cubs 2

Winning Pitcher: Bumgarner (3-0) Losing Pitcher: Samardzija (1-2)

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Player of the Game: Madison Bumgarner

The Chicago Cubs lost a close one today and even though they had plenty of chances to win the game they didn’t come through when they needed to. Jeff Samardzija pitched a solid game and got a quality start by going 6 innings allowing two earned runs on 7 hits and one walk. Samardzija didn’t strikeout as many batters as he did in his past games with 5strikeouts from the San Francisco Giants batters. Although Samardzija had a good outing, he had to settle with the lost because he got out pitched by the Giants starting pitcher, Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner was the player of the game in today’s game because he went 6.2 innings, only allowing two earned runs on 6 hits and 2 walks.

Impressive: The most impressive part of today’s game was Dioner Navarro. Navarro hit his second pinch hit homer in as many days. Dioner Navarro hit a two run homerun against Madison Bumgarner in the bottom of the 7^th to give the Cubbies the only runs that they scored in the game. Navarro’s homer yesterday tied the game in the ninth and today’s homer gave the Cubs a chance to tie or win the game. The Cubs might need to find a spot in the lineup for Navarro because his bat is too hot to be coming off the bench as a pinch hitter. Another impressive thing in today’s game for the Cubs was that the pitching staff held Buster Posey to no hits again. However, Posey did get on base a couple of times today with a walk and he go hit with a pitch. I would be shocked if Posey doesn’t get a hit in the series final game tomorrow.

Surprising: I was surprised when I found out that the Chicago Cubs placed Kyuji Fujikawa on the 15 day DL. Therefore, the Cubbies will have to go with a closer committee which will be based on matchups. The news that Fujikawa was hurt was surprising because I didn’t notice he was hurt in yesterday’s game, but that can explain why his velocity was down yesterday. I’m also shocked because the Cubs said there is no timeline for Fujikawa’s return and that means he will probably be out more for than the 15 days. I was also surprised that Cubs are going to a closer committee that doesn’t involve Carlos Marmol, which is alarming, but it is the right thing to do.

Concerning: I’m very concerned about how poorly the Cubs hit when they had runners in scoring position today. The Chicago Cubs went 0 for 6 when they had runners in scoring position, which is disappointing. If the Cubs could have just gotten one hit when they had base runners on, they would have probably won today’s game. Sometimes the Chicago Cubs hitters didn’t need to even get a hit, they just needed to hit a sac fly in order to score some runs. There really isn’t a player to blame for this because it’s just a team problem and it needs to be addressed if the Cubbies want to compete and try to get to .500 this year.