You can be forgiven for thinking this, because I sure was: When Jorge López was greeted, in his first save opportunity as a Cub, with a home run by Addison Barger, I immediately thought: “Hey, Hector Neris could have done THAT!”
But unlike Neris in too many save opportunitiesr this year, López bore down and struck out the next three Blue Jays, including a pretty good hitter in Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to end the game, and the Cubs had a hard-earned 3-2 win on a day when it would Just. Not. Stop. Raining.
I’ll get to that, but let’s rewind to the beginning of this game.