daisy_knotwise and I went to the Cubs first night game vs. the Reds tonight. Prior pitched reasonably well (6 innings, 2 earned runs, 10 Ks), but ran up enough pitches that he needed to come out after six with a 5-2 lead. By the eighth inning, the score was 7-3, which meant that it was hypothetically safe to bring in LaTroy Hawkins. Despite an error, Hawkins got out of the inning without damage, other than listening to the booing.Neifi Perez hit a 3-run shot for the Cubs in the bottom of the eighth, giving the Cubs an even more hypothetically safe 10-3 lead for Chad Fox to protect in the ninth. And had Fox not thrown eight balls in his first nine pitches, that might have been true.
Adam Dunn came to the plate and I told Gretchen, "This is a problem. Dunn's probably got more pure power than any other player in the majors except Bonds, and Bonds isn't playing right now." On the next pitch, Dunn launched a bomb onto Waveland making it 10-6.
Shortly thereafter, Chad Fox left with a potentially nasty elbow injury and Remlinger closed out the game, getting the final two outs.
Aside from the Cubs winning, the good news was that it wasn't nearly as cold as we'd feared.