Jason Hammel lasted just five innings in his last start before cramping in his right hand forced him to leave the July 7 game against the Braves.
Hammel spoke with the Cubs' team doctor, who gave the right-hander an interesting prescription for what Hammel said was a "chronic thing."
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"Potato chips, because they have a lot of potassium and the sea salt helps retain water," Hammel told reporters after Saturday's 3-1 win over the Rangers. "So I focused on that over the (All-Star) break and ate a lot of potato chips, and I think it turned out pretty well. Potato chip prescription ... that's what I'm going to try to go with."
It worked.
Hammel held the Rangers to one run on three hits and struck out seven over six innings at Wrigley Field. The 33-year-old was also munching on chips between innings.
Saturday's win was the first for Hammel since June 4, a span that included seven starts. After a scorching start to the season, the Cubs limped into the All-Star break by going 9-15 in their final 24 first-half games. Since coming out of the break, the Cubs have outscored the American League West-leading Rangers by a 9-1 margin.
"We're going to lose some games — you can't win them all," Hammel said. "At the beginning of the season, we were torrid. Everybody was doing their job and we were clicking on all cylinders. That type of pace is hard to keep up. Obviously, we'd like to do that, but our job is to go game by game and do the best we can. We had a little bit of a hiccup there, and hopefully we can ride this out and make up for some of the ground we lost."
Cubs fans hope their team can remain hot for the rest of the season and play well into October. If the Cubs were to win their first World Series title since 1908 and end one of the longest championship droughts in sports, it may be all that — and a bag of chips.