CHICAGO _ After a gale wind caught a popup to center field and sent it to right for a two-run double Friday, Kris Bryant pulled into second base with a grin on his face.
"Any hit in the show is a hit in the show," he said with a laugh Saturday morning.
Amazingly, it happened again Saturday when Bryant's hard shot to deep center in the fourth inning turned into a ground-rule double after center fielder Jarrod Dyson lost track of the wind-blown ball and watched it bounce off the warning track and into the bleachers.
Bryant was back at third base Saturday, safe from the madness of the 30-mph gusts that made right field an adventure when he played there Friday.
"I was out there in right field thinking, 'Please don't hit the ball in the air,' " he said. "Usually on those days you hit the ball low, hit it on the ground. But (Friday) if you hit the ball in the air you didn't know where it was going to go. You saw it with a couple of the other guys _ Willson (Contreras) hit one that had the other center fielder (Ketel Marte) screaming.
"It was probably one of those games where the wind affected the ball more than any other game I've been in. We've done it before. It's easy to complain, but we have to deal with it here in April and May. You never know where the winds are blowing or what the temperature is going to be. The biggest thing is to use it to our advantage because we've done it before, and being from Arizona they're used to playing indoors and don't know exactly how to do it."
Bryant went 1 for 3 with a walk Saturday and has reached five times in the last two days. But he's hitting .239 with only one home run in 71 at-bats.
"He had good at-bats all game," manager Joe Maddon said. "I liked the walk, he worked really hard for his walk. ... I thought he looked pretty good."
Bryant is confident the results will come if he continues to work, though he admitted he was tired of being asked about the slow start.
"I've been through this before," he said. "I've been down this road. It's easy to complain. It's not going to do anything. I control my attitude and my effort and my swing. I just try to put myself in position to square up the baseball. That's all I can do."
So he feels good?
"I feel great," he replied. "I give it all I've got and at the end of the day I can sleep at night knowing I've tried my best."
