Young Cubs Revolutionaries Stage Coup, Force King Felix to Abdicate Throne

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanMarch 21, 2015

Felix Hernandez has long been the gold standard of MLB pitching. In a league focused on stats, often the wrong ones, the man won the 2010 Cy Young with a 13-12 record. That’s pretty special; I mean, they do call the guy “King.”

But no regime lasts forever and the Cubs came into Saturday’s audience with royalty boasting a few men they believe are worthy of their own crowns. And, boy, did a couple of them prove that today.

With one on and one out in the 1st inning, Kris Bryant worked a 2-2 count against the Mariners ace before this happened:

That is what you call terminating a pitch with extreme prejudice.

You might get tired of me saying this, but I’m going to repeat it until it’s not true anymore: Kris Bryant’s bat is loud. The sound of him cracking that shot to deep left almost seems like it was created in a studio. But judging from the ensuing roar from the 13,000+ assembled at Sloan Park, they heard it just fine live.

Since the game wasn’t televised, that Vine from Jess Rogers is really all we have. Isn’t technology wonderful? Of course, it would be more wonderful if we could marvel at the bomb Addison Russell dropped on King Felix and the Mariners in the 3rd.

Where were you on that, Rogers?

Okay, even an intrepid journalist has to feed the machine; there better not’ve been any ketchup on it though.

Listen, I suppose it’s entirely possible that Hernandez has lost a bit of the form that made him one of the most feared pitchers in baseball over the last decade. And maybe he was pulling an E-Jax and just grooving fastballs in spring training. But I don’t think that’s the case.

These Cubs kids really are this good and this isn’t the last time we’re going to see some combination of this group go yard. The last couple seasons have seen the Cubs waging almost a guerilla campaign, but now they’re making plenty of highly-publicized attacks on the baseball establishment.

While drafting this post, I accidentally typed “Byrant,” but perhaps that was both prophetic and Freudian, since this young man could well be a tyrant as far as NL pitchers are concerned. And he’s going to have plenty of support from the rest of his rebel alliance; Russell, Jorge Soler, Javier Baez, and even (fingers crossed) Kyle Schwarber are all armed with heavy ordnance.

I suppose now would be the time to expound upon my ham-handed analogy with talk of conflicting puppet governments involving the megalomaniacal Scott Boras and the Theocracy under which the Cubs currently operate. But I’m in the Bahamas and neither the beautiful weather nor this bottle of Bacardi Añejo think that’s a good idea. I’m sure you agree.

You might not be here in paradise with me, but darnit if watching that Vine up above won’t make you feel like you are.

Editor’s note: As I was going to publish this, I saw that Bryant had hit another home run, his 8th of the spring. That makes three 2-HR games for him in Mesa and significantly turns up the volume on the “call him up” chants.

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanMarch 21, 2015
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