{"id":21499,"date":"2019-06-28T01:53:21","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T05:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=21499"},"modified":"2019-06-28T14:59:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T18:59:55","slug":"craig-kimbrel-first-save-chicago-cubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/06\/28\/craig-kimbrel-first-save-chicago-cubs\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Kimbrel Gets First Save for Chicago Cubs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Craig Kimbrel<\/a> Gets First Save<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Craig Kimbrel notched his first save as a Chicago Cub<\/a> Thursday against the Atlanta Braves<\/a>. He made quick work of his first two batters, but lost control against the next two batters he faced.<\/p>\n

In a 9-7 win against the Braves, Kimbrel came in to close out the game in the top of the ninth. He punched out his first two batters but gave up a double to Ronald Acuna Jr.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

He then walked Dansby Swanson<\/a><\/strong> on four straight pitches, losing control of his command. His last batter was Freddy Freeman, who ripped the ball down the first base line. Anthony<\/strong> Rizzo<\/strong><\/a> stopped the ball and dove to get Freeman out at first to end the ballgame.<\/p>\n

After falling down 6-1 , the Cubs rallied by scoring 3 runs in the fourth on a Jayson Heyward single that scored Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez<\/strong><\/a>. A wild pitch by Bryse<\/strong> Wilson<\/strong><\/a> scored Heyward later in the inning, making the score 6-4. In the fifth inning, Rizzo hit a ground rule double that scored Kris Bryant<\/a><\/strong>. Heyward then hit a triple on a sharp line drive to center field, scoring Rizzo to tie the game 6-6. Victor Caratini<\/a><\/strong> then hit a two run home run, driving in Heyward, giving the cubs a 8-6 lead.<\/p>\n

A Sight for Sore Eyes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It was all Kimbrel needed to see before given the chance to make his first appearance as a Cub.<\/p>\n

\u201cI truly believe I’m here for a reason,\u201d Kimbrel said to Chicago Sports after the game. \u201cSeeing the potential of this team is a reason I chose to come to Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spider-like stare down is a menacing sight for the National League. But it\u2019s a sight for sore eyes for Cubs fans.<\/p>\n

Kimbrel signed a 3 year $43 million contract to close out games for the Cubs, who are in desperate need of bullpen help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Craig Kimbrel Gets First Save Craig Kimbrel notched his first save as a Chicago Cub Thursday against the Atlanta Braves. He made quick work of his first two batters, but lost control against the next two batters he faced. In a 9-7 win against the Braves, Kimbrel came in to close out the game in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3102,"featured_media":21532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1071],"tags":[67,2185,323,488,1982,1479],"class_list":["post-21499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-mlb","tag-anthony-rizzo","tag-bryse-wilson","tag-craig-kimbrel","tag-dansby-swanson","tag-ronald-acuna-jr","tag-victor-caratini"],"modified_by":"DJ Kleinbard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}