Sammy Sosa cranked a walk off yak on the first pitch from Brad Lidge in the bottom of the tenth Thursday afternoon to give the Cubs a 5-4 win over the Stros in the rubber game of their three game series at Wrigley.
Lidge was the superficial goat in this one, but Jimy Williams is the true goat. In saving Wednesday’s game for the Stros, Lidge threw 35 pitches under stressful circumstances and, thus, had no business even warming up 24 hours later, much less closing the game.
Moreover, even with Carlos Beltran being the only Stro regular hitting the ball well (two yaks, four RBI’s in today’s game), Williams continues inexplicably to keep Mike Lamb and Jason Lane on the bench while Bags and Viz continue to scruff. The Stros officially were the worst hitting team in Major League Baseball during June as they scored a total of 91 runs in 27 games. Meanwhile, Williams continues to have Adam Everett lay down sacrifice bunts and play Brad Ausmus rather than than make meaningful changes to juice up the lineup. It is truly amazing that Stros management tolerates such incompetence.
Roy O takes the hill in the first game on Friday in the weekend series against the Rangers. With a West Coast trip to San Diego and L.A. looming after this weekend, the Stros had better start helping Beltran or else their playoff chances will be over by the All-Star break.