Terrific Game

The Cubs moved back to a two game lead with a 3-0 win over the Brewers Tuesday night.  It was a tense and exciting game despite the low offensive production of both teams.  Just as Monday's game was decided by a mistake, this one was as well.  Monday it was a wild pitch and failure to cover home by Edwards.  Tuesday it was Chacin's wild throw attempting to pick Baez off second base.  Baez continues to influence the game and force errors.  Not to be forgotten is Quintana's masterful performance.  Nor should Caratini's two grinding at-bats, both of which resulted in key RBI hits.  Caratini continues to impress as a player who definitely belongs in the majors.

I was at the game Tuesday.  I sat in the nosebleed section of the upper deck.  Hadn't sat there in a while.  It does give one a pretty panoramic view of the defenses.  I thought the Brewers seemed to deploy an exaggerated shift against the Cubs left-handed batters where the second baseman played fully sixty feet behind the infield dirt, or so it seemed from my vantage point.  At first I thought it was just for Murphy, but it seemed they used the same deployment for virtually every left-handed Cubs hitter.  The defense took away two or three hits from the Cubs.  I rather think that setup has been working against the Cubs both here and in Milwaukee because the Cubs are in a stretch where they are not using the entire field.

Bottom line what I am getting at is the Brewers have contained the Cubs defensively at times more from their scouting and positioning rather than their being any good in the field.  That's the way Tuesday's game played out anyway.  In addition to the Chacin throw, Shoop continued to bollix up pretty easy chances.  The Cubs, on the other hand, are a superior defensive team.  Witness the two astonishing plays Russell made in the ninth to help preserve the win.