The wait finally came to a close a little over a week ago when the Chicago Cubs 2017 season officially began against their division rival, the St Louis Cardinals. Chicago Cubs fans had been patiently waiting for what seemed like 108 years to watch their now loveable winners continue on their path to a dynasty. The Cubs looked to pick up where they left off in game one of the 2017 season, but things didn’t go as planned.

Luckily, things changed as the Cubs went back to their winning ways in games two and three of the series in St. Louis. Following their three game series with the Cardinals, the Cubs hopped on a plane and headed North to Milwaukee where it seemed like they were greeted with a stadium that had more Cubs fans in it than Brewers fans. When the first week of baseball concluded, the Cubs were 4-2 (now 5-2), which isn’t terrible. Here is how the Cubs kicked off their 2017 season.

I won’t sugar coat it. Opening Day was tough for the defending World Series Champions. The Cubs couldn’t hit the Cardinals all night until a man by the name of Wilson Contreras hit a three run bomb to tie it in the ninth. This team truly never gives up. We saw it in games three and four of the NDLS when the Cubs stormed back against the San Francisco Giants in the ninth inning, sending one to extras and winning the other. Then, we saw it again in the first game of the season. Hopes of sending the game to extra innings were diminished, however, by the power of Randal Grichuk’s bat when he doubled to right center field, scoring the game winning RBI. Enough about the loss, though. The Chicago Cubs are about flying the W.

The Cubs’ second game of the season was a pitcher’s duel between some of the best arms in the game. Adam Wainwright and Jake Arrieta came out firing, but in the fourth inning Wainwright gave up one too many runs. The Cubs got an RBI each from Jason Heyward and Javier Baez, which eventually was enough to put the Cubs on top.Those two runs weren’t the plays that defied the game, however. In fact, the play of the night came on defense when the center fielder Albert Almora Jr. robbed Matt Adams of a potential game-tying home run. Wade Davis ended up closing the game in the ninth, registering his first save as a Chicago Cub. The Cubs had one more in St Louis; a game that would settle the 1-1 series tie.

If there is one thing that you should know about the final game of the series, it is that Kyle Schwarber hit a home run with an exit velocity of 112.1 MPH, effectively registering as his hardest homerun off of a left handed pitcher. Most importantly, though, it was the game winning home run. John Lackey, who was on the bump that day, had definitely seen better days, but he got the run support needed from the Cubs’ offense that gave him the win. The Cubs took their confidence from the season’s opening series win over the Cardinals into Milwaukee where they were in search of winning their second series of the season.

Similar to the Cubs’ loss against St Louis on opening day, the Cubs suffered a devastating loss against the Brewers in the series’ opening matchup. The game fell apart in the bottom of the 11th inning when Mike Montgomery got wild with the bases loaded. He threw a ball that got by Wilson Contreras resulting in Ryan Braun easily stealing home to secure a Brewers victory over the Cubs by the score of 2-1. In the following game, however, the Cubs’ bats turned on.

The Cubs made sure that this time around they wouldn’t lose to the Brewers in a close game, so they lit up the Miller Park scoreboard with a double digit scoring output. Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, and Albert Almora Jr. all had big games with three hits, propelling the Cubs to a dominant 11-6 win. At this point it seemed like something had clicked with the Cubs offense because the next day the Cubs would put up yet another big number.

In the third and final game of the series, the Cubs had a strong four run first inning, followed by yet another mammoth Kyle Schwarber home run in the second. At that point, the Cubs were up five to nothing, which was all the runs they would need to hold off the Brewers. Jake Arrieta threw a solid game as he picked up the W, only surrendering one 3-run homer to Brewers slugger Ryan Braun.

The Cubs are now 5-2 (after last night’s victory over the Dodgers) and are off to a good start so far in their division. It’s still a very young season, but I do have some takeaways. Albert Almora Jr. looked very sharp in his first week in Cubbie blue. Not only did he make some game-saving, ridiculous grabs in the outfield, but he also did some damage at the plate. In seven at bats he has four hits, which when you do the math is a .571 batting average. If Almora Jr. can continue to play like this throughout the season he will definitely earn a starting position in the Cubs’ lineup. The pitching–especially that of the bullpen–could have been much better this first week, but it wasn’t bad. In six games the most a team could score in nine innings was 6 runs. Although Jon Lester and Brett Anderson pitched in games where the Cubs lost, they both looked very solid and would have definitely won the game if they had some run support from the Cubs.

Be sure to check in with The Forest Scout weekly to get the full recap of the Chicago Cubs previous week in baseball.