The Cubs earned a split with St. Louis which puts Chicago with home field advantage in now a best of three contest.
The Cubs struggled with the strike zone and scoring runs in Game 1. So Maddon used old school techniques and bad Cardinal fielding to manufacture runs in a big five run inning.
Safety Squeezes are passe in the era of long balls and sabermetrics. But back to back drops put pressure on the defense who failed to execute. Austin Jackson said after the game any time you can put pressure on the other team, that is good.
Pitching and defense win championships. The Cubs may have given Maddon enough comfort in the bullpen of T. Wood, Cahill and Rondon to close out any game. By pulling Hendrick after 4.1 innings, Wood came in for a brilliant 2.2 IP to get to the new set up man, Cahill. He was pumped up by his 1,2,3 8th inning performance. Rondon, who tended to overthrow a few pitches, settled in and closed out the game.
If Maddon knows he has three relievers he can count on, he does not have to try to ride a struggling starting pitcher. He should have no problems with Arrieta in Game 3, but he is looking forward into Game 4.
The big deal is that if the bullpen can perform like in Game 2, the Cardinals starting pitching strength vanishes for the rest of the series.
