CI Recap (5/26/17) – Dodgers 4, Cubs 0: Cubs Barely Knock on Wood

The Cubs hit the road for a two-set road trip that opened Friday night in Los Angeles in an NLCS rematch between the Cubs and Dodgers. Jake Arrieta was on the hill for the Cubs versus the very hot Alex Wood, who came into the game with a 20.1 inning scoreless streak. Of course, the Cubs have been playing pretty good baseball themselves, winning seven of the last nine.

So how did the game play out?

The first two innings were all about the pitching. Arrieta and Wood seemingly struck out everyone, at least when they weren’t getting groundouts. But the Cubs got some hits and walks off of Wood and also worked his pitch count up. Jason Heyward got the Cubs their first hit of the night on a solid line drive up the middle. Let me just say that Good Heyward is soooooooooooooooo much fun.

The Dodgers got the run-scoring started in the bottom of the 3rd, when an animatronic zombie made to look like Chase Utley ran into an Arrieta fastball to make it 1-0 Dodgers. And then in the 4th, a Yasmani Grandal double scored a hustling Corey Seager.

Arrieta settled in and struck out nine total until Adrian Gonzalez stepped to the plate with Seager on first. Gonzalez did not miss the fastball that came his way and hit a moonshot over the center field wall. It gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead that may as well have been five times as big given the way the Cubs were hitting.

Arrieta left the game after the 6th with a solid line (5 hits, 4 earned runs, 9 punchouts), but the pair of homers were not ideal.

And that was it for the game. The only other thing that was good and cool and worth sharing was an incredible diving stop by Addison Russell to start a double play in the bottom of the 8th.

The Bottom Line

It wasn’t the Cubs’ night and Joe Maddon only ran the Get-a-Hit play twice tonight. Oh. Onto tomorrow night.

Stats that Matter

• Nine strikeouts for Jake Arrieta tonight. I love his curveball a lot.

Up Next

These two teams will be back at it Saturday night back from Dodger Stadium. John Lackey against Brandon McCarthy, 6:15 CT, I’ll have that recap for you too.