Are Walk Off Home Runs Good For Baseball?

Asking for a friend. Huge Cubs fan.

Alright now that I have your attention let’s run through some quick real talk starting with of course Jon Lester:

– Jon Lester leads MLB with a 1.16 ERA which is computed from 5 earned runs in 38.1 innings otherwise known as a great fucking start. Some of you statheads are going to say stuff like Regression and He’s 35 but @ the end of the day, Jonny Ball Game shoves. End of story.

His evolution into a crafty vet has been a joy to watch. He threw 115 pitches last night in what felt like a Must Win game for the club. Maybe not to us fans, but I certainly got the impression the boys wanted this one to put the feather in the cap that there isn’t anything they can’t handle. There’s been angst held over from last September and last night was a big knockout punch to those bad memories.

– Willson Contreras is hitting .343/.415/.600 in May with 3 home runs in 9 starts. As long as he’s a consistent offensive threat, this team will be at the top in baseball. When he goes, everyone else goes. It also helps him behind the plate because he’s much more into the game when he’s not bitching at the umpire for a strike call 3 innings earlier. These are facts just a matter of you accepting them.

- David Bote hit an infield single with 2 outs on Saturday, then scored from first base on a base hit to right center to tie the game at 1’s. The Cubs scored again 9 innings later in the 15th to win the game. Point is sometimes winning and losing comes down to David Bote making a great slide after hustling his way to first and hustling his ass around the bases. Then sometimes you need Tyler Chatwood to throw 50 scoreless extra innings because that’s just the way it goes.

– Follow up point is you have to steal games and that game belonged to nobody and that’s exactly what happened Satutrday so extended kudos to the boys on that front.

- 9-2 in April

– 9-0-1 last 10 series

- 2 game first place lead

- Cubs in 4