So what was the bigger surprise at Wrigley Field on Monday night?
That journeyman Rodrigo Lopez was credited with the 6-1 Chicago Cubs win, just above the line that gave eventual Hall of Famer Roy Halladay the loss for the Philadelphia Phillies?
Or that each member of the collective press corps lasted longer in a sweltering press box than Halladay did on the Friendly Confines field below?
If you're a doctoral student of Doc's, you know that it was a, uh, dead heat:
As mentioned in Monday's Evening Shade, it was exactly one year to the day that Halladay and the Phillies had battled the Cubs on a North Side Sunday night, only to see Tom Gorzelanny walk away with a win. Such an outcome was impossible for Monday ? Gorzelanny is no longer for the corner of Clark and Addison ? but Lopez had more than a puncher's chance because Halladay somehow hasn't been relatively that good against the Cubs. Though it's a small sample size, Halladay is now 1-4 with a 3.72 ERA in five career starts against the Cubs.
Combine that with a heat index of 105 degrees and Halladay wasn't in a good spot. Check out this crazy breakdown of Doc's performance as it relates to temperature (via Larry Brown Sports):
Granted, it was ridiculouslyfreakinghot out there. Just watching Halladay labor while shedding his undershirt on television was enough to send you to the freezer for an entire box of Dreamsicles.
But it is interesting that Halladay ? generally thought to be one of baseball's best conditioned pitchers ? performs so poorly when the heat is on. �He felt dizzy during Monday's night game and had to leave after allowing three runs and seven hits. Different people react to the heat differently, I guess.
Luckily, neither condition ? not the Cubs nor the extreme temperatures ? will be around in October. But it was interesting to see them team up to topple a pitcher normally seen as invincible.
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