For anyone questioning the Power of Somehow, let's review. May 20, 2016. Duke writes what could be considered my first article: "Kyle Hendricks: Somehow Good." viewtopic.php?p=40554#p40554 Now a thread titled "Kyle Hendricks: Somehow Greg Maddux," I wrote glowingly of a guy with a 3.58 ERA, coming off of a season with a 3.95 ERA. From that date on, Hendricks had a 1.75 ERA and led the majors in ERA at the end of the year. He pitched perhaps the best game in franchise history, shutting out the Dodgers, besting Clayton Kershaw, and clinching the franchise's first World Series berth in 71 years. He then started Game 7 of the Cubs' first World Series win in 108 years. Unbeknownst at the time, the Old Duke'ster was actually a plague on the Cubs, due to the baseball gods hating me for some reason. The Duke Curse soon became quite apparent. It should have been known when I wrote this sentence in 2016: But it wasn't until I nearly killed off the whole Cubs roster last year that we all caught on. In Spring Training, I wrote an article about Spring Training stats and suggested that Javy Baez might strike out less. His K% went up from 24.0% to 28.9%. I also argued that Ben Zobrist's poor Spring stats meant nothing because his peripherals still looked good. He finished with a .82 wRC+. I also wondered if Addison Russell was going to have a breakout season. He had an 84 wRC+. I then wrote an article stating that Kyle Schwarber was breaking out. He was playing in AAA two months later. My next article was one advising that better days were ahead for the Cubs' rotation. They all got much worse, were injured, or died. I then wrote an article about Kyle Hendricks and his 3.81 ERA and why I still loved him. From that date on, he had a 2.04 ERA. After I didn't kill Kyle, I wondered why he was immune from the Duke Curse. Next, I wrote an ode to Jon Lester's cutter. Lester completely lost command of his cutter immediately after my article and was placed on the DL within a couple weeks. Undeterred, I wrote an article about Jake Arrieta returning to ace form. Within hours, Arrieta was serving up dongs before leaving with a cursed hamstring strain. Here's where things get really weird. The title of my Arrieta article was "The Gang Gets a New Ace." This title is a reference to the television show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. At the time, I thought I was welcoming the Cubs' ace back. It turns out, I was temporarily killing him, making him untrustworthy in Theo's eyes, and handing over a new ace to the Phillies. The Duke Curse is very real. But why does it only make Kyle Hendricks stronger? Somehow. After tweeting about Ian Happ, the unenlightened would be sure to think I jinxed him. He homered on his next AB. [tweet]
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[/tweet] Since discovering the Power of Somehow, the eerie incidents have abounded. I once responded to Bryant's Disco Ball that Kyle Hendricks wouldn't give up any more hard-hit balls in a game and that the Cubs would mount a late rally to win. BDB reminded me that I didn't include "somehow." The next batter he faced hit a flyout to the wall. A warning. I edited my post to include "somehow." Kyle finished off 7 2-hit innings and the Cubs scored 5 late to win easily. I also somehow saved Yu Darvish's life: viewtopic.php?p=265691#p265691 Last night, I said that Quintana would somehow spin a gem. I'm somehow going to somehow us into a bunch of dongs tonight.
