CHICAGO — For much of the past two months the Chicago Cubs have talked about the kind of baseball they were capable of playing if everyone did his part.
Now they’re done talking and letting their actions speak for them.
The results have been impressive to see.
“Coming (off) the (4-5) road trip, obviously we keep saying, ‘It’s a long season, it’s a long season,’ and things like that,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “But it did seem like a significant homestand, playing the Pirates for the first time. Any time you play at home it’s special, and we’re playing good baseball. Won some close games. Feels good.”
Justin Steele pitched five strong innings in his return after suffering a left forearm strain on May 31 against the Tampa Bay Rays, and the bullpen combined for four shutout innings in a 3-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles before a crowd of 40,605 at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs scratched out only four hits but made them count. Hoerner’s two-run, third-inning double spotted Steele to an early lead, and Mike Tauchman’s sacrifice fly in the fifth gave them the lead for keeps.
In one of the stranger endings, plate umpire C.B. Bucknor forgot the count on Adbert Alzolay’s 3-2 pitch to Austin Hays in the ninth, leading to an umpire huddle and then a video review to confirm it was actually ball four.
“A couple of guys just forgot,” manager David Ross said, referring to the count. “Wrigley can do that to you if the crowd gets into it.”
Alzolay patiently waited out the delay and calmly retired Adley Rutchsman on a groundout, sending the Cubs to their fifth straight win and seventh in eight games.
“I had a 3-2 count before the pitch in my head,” Hoerner said. “So when everyone paused I was hopeful maybe we’d get another chance at him. It was a strange moment for sure, a weird pause in a real energetic time.
“Adbert is high energy. I can’t imagine what that felt like, waiting to face the next guy, but it all worked out.”
Everything has worked out lately for the Cubs, who’ve won three straight series for the first time since four consecutive series wins from April 7-19. Only nine days earlier they were swept by the Los Angeles Angels, falling a season-worst 10 games under .500.
Ross wouldn’t compare the two stretches.
“It feels good to just roll off a couple wins here,” he said. “That’s a really good team there across the way, I know that. We’re playing a good brand of baseball. That’s what we’ve got to do. A lot of that has to do with the bullpen.”
Alzolay has solidified his role as the unnamed closer, while Julian Merryweather and Mark Leiter Jr. have stepped up as setup men, combining for three shutout innings Saturday.
Steele (7-2) nearly got through his outing unscathed. A two-out single by Hayes in the fifth preceded a 406–foot, two-run home run from Rutchsman on a hanging slider. But Yan Gomes’ fifth-inning double, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly by Mike Tauchman gave the Cubs a 3-2 lead, which held up.
“I was driving myself nuts not being able to get out there and play baseball with the guys,” Steele said. “I was really enjoying watching us win ballgames. For me to step right in and contribute at a decently high level, felt really good to contribute to a win.”
Earlier, the Cubs lost Patrick Wisdom to the 10-day injured list with a right wrist sprain and will have to make due with Nick Madrigal and Miles Mastrobuoni at third for the foreseeable future. Neither player has homered, and Mastrobuoni was hitting .148 with one RBI after Saturday.
Still, Wisdom had a .105 average with two home runs over his last 22 games since May 14, striking out in nearly 50% of his plate appearances (35-of-72). It can’t get any worse.
Meanwhile, this four-team National League Central race appears to be up for grabs if someone wants to take it.
The Milwaukee Brewers lost six straight games before beating the Pirates on Friday night to move back into first place, while the Orioles were seven games behind the Rays in the American League East after Saturday’s loss in spite of having the third-best record in baseball.
Mediocrity was being rewarded in one division. Dominance wasn’t quite good enough in another. That’s baseball’s balanced schedule at work.
All five AL East teams had a positive run differential on Saturday, while the Cubs were the only NL Central team that had scored more runs than it had given up. The disparity couldn’t be more glaring, and the possibility of a bad team winning the NL and AL Central divisions, while a quality team from the AL East gets shut out of the postseason, looks more likely by the day.
“I don’t feel frustrated by it,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “We can only take care of what we control. Our division, there are five teams that had playoff aspirations this year. Maybe three years from now the NL Central will have five (playoff caliber) teams. Who knows?
“Our division has a lot of resources and they’re good teams, and we’ve been playing well against them. We’ve been playing better in our division than outside. We need to take care of what we can take care of.”
The Cubs have done just that during this 5-0 homestand, where the energy level has been as high as it has been all season.
Wrigley can do that to you.
