Enhanced Box Score: Cubs 8, Cardinals 6
ONE MORE DAY, BABY! CUBS WIN AGAIN!
Whew. That was an absolutely bonkers game. Multiple leads lost. An opener. Wild catches in the outfield. A delayed start. A rain delay late.
The Cardinals took leads of 1-0, 3-1, 5-3, and 6-5 in this game, all of which they blew/the Cubs stormed back. I can’t remember the last time I saw a game where that happened so many times.
Big games at the plate up and down the lineup for the Cubs, who had 15 hits. The pitching was more mixed, with Michael Fulmer’s opening appearance marred by the leadoff homer (but otherwise not terrible), Drew Smyly’s outing coming with a lot of strikeouts but way too many base-runners, Daniel Palencia getting wild, but then the back-end trio of Merryweather-Leiter-Alzolay shutting things down. No blown calls by the umpire required in this one!
Willson Contreras still smokes the ball in this ballpark against his old mates, but he did have to leave this one early with a hip issue.
Dansby Swanson didn’t show any rust at the plate, with a couple hits, including a double.
Nico Hoerner is kinda back to being on fire, and I love it. Every Cubs batter in the 2 to 6 range in the order had a multi-hit game, and dang that is VERY much what you want to see.
Had the game gone another way, you’d point to a couple little noticeable, can’t-do-that things as directly impacting the run-scoring. You had Cody Bellinger trying to take home on a ball that got away from Willson Contreras, but he didn’t slide, and that was the difference in him being thrown out. A couple innings later, a two-out double just got past Ian Happ after a ricochet off one of the outfield doors, allowing a run to score that otherwise wouldn’t have. Two very small and understandable mistakes in the heat of a play, mildly flukey, but they swung a couple runs. That’s the kind of thing the Cubs can’t do if they really want to get back in this thing – every little margin counts when your margins are so thin.
But they both had big games at the plate (and Happ made an outstanding diving catch in the outfield) *AND* the Cubs won, so no need to hang on them!
I feel like I’m missing so much stuff. The game lasted over 5 hours given the delays, so I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff.
Full box score.
Source: bleachernation.com
