Unbelievable. Unpredictable. Unforgettable. This one game was each of these adjectives at least three different times on one night.
The Cubs hosted the Philadelphia Phillies on June 6 and I was filling in for David Kaplan hosting Cubs Postgame Live. Kapper missed a doozy. Quintana set the tone for an exciting night with a season-high 10 strikeouts and left the game with a 3-0 lead in the sixth inning. The fun was just beginning. What followed was crazy.
When Quintana left, reliever Steve Cishek took over. Cishek had gone 53 consecutive innings without allowing a home run. Jinx. Boom. Gone. Aaron Altherr greeted him with a game tying three-run homer. Streak over and a couple innings later, the rareness of this night continued.
When the ninth inning started, David DeJesus and I started heading to the press box to get ready for the Cubs Postgame Live. We went over our rundown for the show with producer Jeff Nelson as Brandon Morrow stepped to the mound with an MLB-best 71 consecutive innings without giving up a long ball. Jinx. Boom. Gone. Philly's Dylan Cozens smokes a tiebreaking two-run dinger. The streak is over and the Cubs trail. Unbelievable and unpredictable.
Now, DeJesus and I are scrambling to change the entire tone of the show. No teleprompter. No scripts. No worries. "We'll wing it."
In the bottom of the ninth the Cubs are down to their final out, but the bases are loaded against Phillies reliever Adam Morgan. It's a bad matchup. He's a lefty and Jason Heyward is up. Heyward was batting second, but this was a brutal matchup.
Me: "So we'll go with Cozens as the player of the game? Unless of course..."
MLB
DeJesus: "Right? You never know"
Crack. Boom. Insanity. Heyward's first career walk-off grand slam leaves like a rocket. It's the Cubs first walk-off granny since Alfonso Soriano did it against the Astros in 2009. Oh, and did I mention that Cory Mazzoni picked up his first MLB win? Yeah. Unbelievable. Unpredictable. Unforgettable.
As for the postgame show..."Yeah, We'll wing it!"
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