After Keegan Thompson got roughed up, this could have gotten ugly. I’m going to tip the cap to the bullpen.Morel’s been struggling a bit, so this type of game has to be a huge boost. He had a pair of hits, scored a pair of runs and had the decisive two-run homer. It would be criminal not to go with Christopher Morel in one of these spots.I’m finally starting to see what the hype was about. Nick has been a completely different player since returning from injury. He scored a pair of runs out of the leadoff spot. I’m going to start with Nick Madrigal with three hits, playing the role of table setter.We’re going to do three positives on each game, because there was a whole lot to love in these games. Let’s get to the games, starting with Friday’s win. But in the meantime, I’m a little bit shocked, a little bit amused and a whole lot entertained. I’m always waiting for the proverbial rug to be pulled out from under the team. In a 162-game season that’s equivalent to an 84-win season - a fringe playoff team. You also will know the numbers if you’ve been a regular reader. Saturday’s win, their fifth straight, marked just their second walkoff win of the season.

But Friday’s game too was a back and forth affair with a come from behind win. Extra-inning games can definitely produce that effect. It produced the second highest and fourth lowest WPA game scores of the season by Cubs players. Saturday’s game was a particularly wild one. Saturday’s win finally produced a duplicate. Friday’s win made that an even 10 for 10. But I highlighted that in the first nine of those wins, nine different players were the Superhero in the nine different wins. Of course, you’ve read that elsewhere too, it’s an obvious story. If you read that, you know that the Cubs have now won 11 of their last 15. For instance, even when things were going good, on Friday I wrote about how the Cubs had been getting Superheroes from so many different directions during this recent surge. I generally will try to find the bigger story or the context for things going on. I’ve always taken the position that Al writes the recaps and looks at the specific blow by blow of what happened.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve used this space to not talk even indirectly about what happened on the field over the last 12 months. I’ll remind people closer to the time, but I will miss at least some time in September as well. Fear not, in this edition, we’ll cover both games. I’m dealing with some health-related things and that left me in a position where I wasn’t available to write Friday night or Saturday morning. Apologies to any regular readers who looked for Heroes and Goats on Saturday after what was a terrific win.

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