More time for baseball, beer the way ‘relentless’ Cubs playing

Are you one of those baseball fans who gets disappointed and irritated when it’s time to leave the ballpark because you haven’t gotten your fill of green grass and nachos? Do you like having an extra hour or so to buy $8.75 ballpark beers? How about walks – you like walks?

Then the Cubs have the team for you.

A Cubs lineup that leads the majors in wearing out pitching staffs killed the Reds softly Wednesday night with yet another clinic in wait-for-it hitting, extending at-bats, extending innings, piling on, and eventually walking away with a 9-2 victory in their fifth game of the season already that has exceeded 3 hours.

Get used to it. This is by design. This is the kind of lineup – infused this year with Ben Zobrist and Jason Heyward — that Theo Epstein’s front office used to win two championships in Boston.

And it’s a big reason the Cubs are off to a 7-1 start that ties the best eight-game start in franchise history.

“I’ve had the privilege of having some pretty good teams,” manager Joe Maddon said. “This is probably one of the most potentially prodigious offensive club I’ve ever had.”

More than home runs in bunches, that’s about the 10 walks they drew Wednesday night, and the half-hour, bat-around first inning they used to knock out Reds starter Alfredo Simon.

Simon and reliever Dan Straily threw 49 pitches that inning – the second 40-plus-pitch inning for an opponent already this season.

“That says something about what we’re trying to do,” said $184 million newcomer Jason Heyward, one of the biggest influences in the Cubs’ patience leap since even a year ago.

“Just trying to take what they give us. Don’t get antsy, don’t get greedy. It’s going to happen; we’re not perfect. But we just try to go up there and put up a good at-bat.”

The Cubs hit just one home run Wednesday – a solo shot for Kris Bryant’s first of the year – but combined eight hits with their 10 walks to extend their league-leading scoring average to 7.0 runs per game and their major-league leading walk total to 48.

“We’ve been talking about it a lot in spring training and the whole beginning of the season,” Maddon said. “And they’re doing it. And I really believe we’re capable of maintaining that kind of an approach.”

It was the fourth game already this season in which the opponents’ staff averaged 20 or more pitches an inning.

“That’s our team. We swing at strikes,” said catcher David Ross, a career .229 hitter, who has gotten into the early act with a 3-for-10 start plus two walks. “We don’t game plan to try to walk. We go out there and we try to see strikes and hit them hard.”

The prodigious first inning started with Dexter Fowler – who’s been at or near the league lead in on-base percentage since the opener – hitting a double. It included three consecutive walks at one point followed by four consecutive batters with an RBI.

Lackey (2-0), who singled home a run that inning, spent a long time cooling on the bench and still wound up with 6 2/3 strong innings in his Cubs home debut.

“You’re not going to hear me complain about watching them score runs,” Lackey said. “I’ll get a coffee and sit there as long as they want to hit.”

Lackey said what his lineup is doing these days reminds him of the notoriously patient lineups he was around in Boston.

“I don’t know about any comparisons,” said Heyward, who joined Ben Zobrist, as significant, patient hitters added to this year’s group. “I think a lot of things are contagious in lineups, when you see guys go up there and have ABs and see pitchers have to pitch people a certain way.

“Like Dex has done a great job of it. I’ve done what I can. Zoby does a good job of it as well. When you have three guys like that at the top of your lineup, I don’t want to say it sets a tone, but we’re just doing what we do. And that just sets up for everybody to kind of see the ball a certain way before they even get to the box.”