It must be summertime in Chicago, because the ball is buzzing around Wrigley. Entering the 4th inning the Cubs had a 14-0 lead. As if that wasn’t enough to make the manual scoreboard operator earn his check, all nine of their starters, including starting pitcher Randy Wells, had at least one hit and one run scored. Seriously:

The silliness factor increases when you note that only three of the Cubs runs came via the home run, and that was only on Kosuke Fukudome’s three-run first inning shot. Pirates starter Charlie Morton has experienced better days, but he’ll be long-pressed to have worse moving forward. His second inning of work – and I say this loosely, since he only recorded three outs – went as such:

Hill triple
Wells walk
Theriot single
Fuld single
Lee walk
Fox double

He was then lifted for reliever Chris Bootcheck, who morphed into a river of gasoline:

Fukudome walk
Soriano single
Baker single
Hill strikeout
Wells single
Theriot pop out
Fuld hit by pitch
Lee double
Fox strikeout

After a 1-2-3 third, Bootcheck imploded again in the fourth, giving up three runs on a Derrek Lee bases-clearing double, making it 17-2. How hopeless is this game for the Pirates? Their fourth inning “rally” – which included three hits and a walk – didn’t even register as a blip on the WE graph:

This is already the most runs scored in a game this year for the Cubs. With four more runs, they would set the high-water mark since 2000. With 12 outs remaining – barring an unforeseen meltdown by the pitching staff – I wouldn’t bet against them.