Cubs 7, Brewers 6

I'm a few days behind on posting this scorecard from Wednesday's Game #2, an annual tradition here at TMMPF Co. For the uninitiated, we go to the second home game of the year, because it's just as cold and you still get the magnet schedule, but tickets are a lot cheaper.

Randy Wells pitched a pretty good game, until he hit a patch of trouble and Pinella brought in a series of random unknown relievers (Berg? Russell? Gray? who the hell are these guys?) who gave up one in the seventh (technically Wells' ER) and two in the eighth.

You might think, with the Cubs down 6-3 heading into the bottom of the eighth, "I've seen this movie before." But there's one factor you did not take into account: Letroy Suckins. Check out the Cubs' eighth to see why Cub fans still detest this guy, and the great schadenfreude we take in the misery he brings upon whatever team employs him (in 2010, that's the Brewers). (click to embiggen)


For some reason, this scorecard had plenty of good notes (clockwise starting at left):
* Derrek Lee was out of the game (day-to-day) after a thumb injury, so Xavier Nady played first.
* Attendance: for some reason they didn't announce the attendance in the eighth like normal. But it was packed, as you'd expect on an unseasonably warm April day.
* "E on Soriano": yeah, it happens.
* side wagers: I won for the 4-6-3 double play. Winner's Pick: Old Style.
* "W.W.t.N.?" obviously stands for "who watches the nachos?" which was the prize for the X-2 wager which (won by TM).
* "chick tossed during key play." During a crucial moment in the bottom of the eighth, as the Cubs were rallying, a drunk chick decided to mouth off to the mouthy Packer fans over our right shoulder. She caught the attention of security who decided her day was done. Right when the Cubs did something good (not sure if it was a walk or a hit), she raised her hands to the crowd, as if to say 'so long.' The crowd cheered the action on the field, and she strutted off like a queen, assuming that her fellow drunks were applauding her defending Cub pride against the Cheeseheads.
* Ivan DeJesus is the 1st base coach this year. Mike Quade is still at third.


More notes (clockwise starting at upper left):
* Ken Macha is the manager. Not sure why I felt compelled to jot that.
* Jokes, One-Liners and Santoisms: I added a new wager this year, guessing whether the first double-play would occur in the 1st/3rd/5th/7th or 2nd/4th/6th/8th. I won.
* We saw Bill Fitzgerald, proprietor of the excellent eponymous nightclub in Berwyn, in the fourth inning. We figured he thought, what the hell, it's a day game, I'm the boss, I'm going to the ballgame.
* this game saw three infield hits. Not impossible, but not real common either.
* in the fifth, Marlon Byrd made an awesome throw to cut down ex-Met Carlos Gomez trying to go from first to third. And yet three plays later, Suckyano misplayed a ball to allow at least one run to score. (One of our friends, Beth--Iowa Beth not D.C. Beth--said on Easter Sunday that she sure hopes this is the year she can stop hating Soriano. My feeling during this game, and last night's failure to leg out a hit: "Not this year.")
* TM flipped through her scorebook and realized that the Plain White T's sang the stretch the last time we were at Wrigley, in addition to the Mets game. What, was Bill Murray not available?
Here's the official MLB boxscore. 83F, want the original scorecard?