The Chicago Cubs left little doubt who the winner of the Crosstown Classic was this weekend after finishing off a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox Sunday night.
Coming into the series, the clubs were heading in opposite directions. The Sox had just destroyed the Pittsburgh Pirates, scoring 37 runs in a three-game series sweep.
Meanwhile, the Cubs were swept by the Tampa Bay Rays, and suffered their first three-game losing streak of the year, and more importantly, were waiting for MRI results for ace pitcher Carlos Zambrano. Luckily Zambrano just has a mild shoulder strain and will miss just a couple of starts.
The series opener on Friday was the best and most exciting game of the series. In the seventh inning, the Cubs were trailing 3-1 and Sox manager Ozzie Guillen curiously pulled starter John Danks, who had shut down the Cubs throughout the game.
Octavio Dotel came in to the game and surrendered back-to-back home runs to Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez (the first two batters he faced) to tie the game. Ramirez saved his biggest hit for the ninth inning, when he launched a game-winning, walk-off home run off of Scott Linebrink.
It appeared that the second game of the series might get away from the Cubs when they were trailing 4-1 in the fourth inning and not getting very good swings off of Jose Contreras.
I’m not sure what happened in the fourth inning, but when the smoke had cleared, the Cubs had taken a 10-4 lead.
The bottom of the fourth started off with back-to-back home runs from Mike Fontenot and Jim Edmonds, and Aramis Ramirez would join the party also, by hitting a three-run shot to left.
Edmonds was the real story however, as he become just the third Cub in franchise history to hit two home runs in the same inning, by hitting another solo shot, the final run the Cubs scored in the nine-run fourth.
The final score was 11-7 after the Sox tacked on a couple of late runs, and the Cubs had won their 13th straight at home, while Jason Marquis won his sixth game of the year.
2 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Sam Wenk about 1 year ago
I agree about Friday being the best game. Luckily, I got to attend and the atmosphere was like nothing else from the 7th inning to the end of the game!
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Bob Warja about 1 year ago
I envy you Sam. So much for "momentum", eh? Everything pointed to the Sox having the big Mo but the Cubs swept them. It was a thing of beauty. But as great as we are at Wrigley, we need to take it to them at the Cell or else it will be a wash and they will be able to say we're not better than them.
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