I told you the Cubs could win this series!
The Cubs went into Dodger Stadium and with solid pitching and hitting took two of three from the defending World Series champions, winning Sunday. They got a strong outing from an unexpected source (Colin Rea) and a great offensive day from Pete Crow-Armstrong, who homered twice. All of this led to a 4-2 victory and a nice big slice of meatloaf.
With Justin Steele now out for the season, Colin Rea was next man up. And Rea pitched admirably over a 68-pitch outing that ended with two out in the fourth. Rea allowed four hits and a run and struck out five. Craig Counsell has said that Rea will continue in Steele’s rotation spot “for now,” and Rea didn’t do anything to take away Counsell’s confidence in him.
The Dodgers scored first, in the bottom of the second. Two singles put runners on first and third with two out, and then Enrique Hernandez, who’s been a Cubs nemesis seemingly forever, singled in Michael Conforto to make it 1-0 Dodgers.
PCA got that run right back in the top of the third [VIDEO].
The ball curved right off the right-field foul pole for PCA’s first home run of the season. But it would not be his last home run of the evening.
The game remained 1-1 into the sixth, with Brad Keller replacing Rea and recording four outs on only 20 pitches. That’s a great use of those two, holding the Dodgers to just one run and five hits over five innings with two guys who were basically castoffs at the end of the 2024 season.
Here are Rea’s five strikeouts [VIDEO].
And more on Rea’s excellent outing [VIDEO].
The Cubs took the lead in the top of the sixth on another homer — not by PCA, but by Michael Busch [VIDEO].
Busch just loves to hit against his former team. After his 2-for-4 evening Sunday against L.A., Busch is hitting .326/.370/.744 (14-for-43) in 11 career games against the Dodgers, with four home runs, 11 runs scored and 12 RBI. (And that includes going 0-for-6 with three strikeouts vs. the Dodgers in Tokyo.) He’ll get another chance against them next week at Wrigley Field.
The Dodgers tied the game with a single run off Caleb Thielbar in the bottom of the sixth, but the Cubs got that run right back in the top of the seventh on PCA’s second homer of the game [VIDEO].
That ball, my friends, was crushed! [VIDEO]
Julian Merryweather threw a scoreless seventh and then the Cubs put another run on the board in the eighth. Kyle Tucker hit a looping fly ball down the left-field line that was ruled foul, but on review you can clearly see it hit the chalk line [VIDEO].
The ball had bounced into the seats so Tucker was given an automatic double — and smart as he is, Tucker actually asked the umpires whether he had to touch first base first on his way to second. (Answer: No.)
Justin Turner, who had zero luck against Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow (three strikeouts, now 13 K’s in 17 career AB vs. Glasnow), walked. Gage Workman ran for him.
One out later, Nico Hoerner singled in Tucker [VIDEO].
So now it’s 4-2 Cubs heading to the bottom of the eighth. Porter Hodge dispatched the Dodgers 1-2-3 with a pair of strikeouts, so the Cubs still had a two-run lead going to the ninth.
He never hesitated racing to third on that little inside-outer down the right-field line. Unfortunately, the next three Cubs made routine outs and PCA was stranded.
About the two-homer-with-a-triple night, from BCB’s JohnW53:
The last Cub with two home runs and a triple before tonight was Seiya Suzuki, on Aug. 24 of last season, in a 14-2 win at Miami. PCA became just the fifth to accomplish the feat this century.
Todd Walker was the first, on June 14, 2004, at Houston, then Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber did it 20 days apart, on July 7 and 27, 2017. Bryant turned the trick at Pittsburgh; Schwarber, on the South Side vs. the White Sox.
A Cub has homered twice and tripled in a total of 15 games since 1901. Billy Williams did it in 1964 and 1971.
The 20th Century one-timers, in order, were Heinie Zimmerman, Bill Nicholson, Hank Sauer, Walt Moryn, Lou Brock, Leon Durham, Andre Dawson and Shawon Dunston.
To the bottom of the ninth, and I know Ryan Pressly hasn’t filled Cubs fans with confidence so far this year. On this night, though, Pressly was not “Stressly” — he retired three good Dodgers hitters in a row on just nine pitches for his fourth save, getting Shohei Ohtani to end the game [VIDEO].
There was only one downside to the game — yet another Cubs injury. Carson Kelly was hit on the left hand by a pitch in the fifth. He stayed in the game for an inning, then left for Miguel Amaya in the sixth. Fortunately, this doesn’t appear serious:
Carson Kelly is out of the game in B6 with a left hand contusion, per the Cubs, replaced by Miguel Amaya behind the plate.
Kelly was hit in the hand in his last at-bat.
— Maddie Lee (@maddie_m_lee) April 14, 2025
X-rays were negative on Carson Kelly’s left wrist. #Cubs
— Taylor McGregor (@Taylor_McGregor) April 14, 2025
So that’s good news on the X-rays being negative. Hopefully Kelly, who has been a tremendously hot hitter, won’t miss more than a couple of days. Here’s Kelly talking about it after the game:
I’m gonna say this right now before people bring it up: No, the Cubs should absolutely NOT bring Moises Ballesteros to the major leagues if Kelly is out for any length of time (and it doesn’t appear that’s the case, anyway). Ballesteros needs to play and get catching experience and the Cubs wouldn’t be able to give that to him in the big leagues. Hopefully Kelly won’t have an IL stint, but if he does, I suspect the Cubs would bring Reese McGuire up from Triple-A Iowa. McGuire has considerable MLB experience and would be a capable backup to Amaya. If the Cubs need a 40-man roster spot for McGuire (or anyone else) they can simply put Steele on the 60-day IL, as he won’t play again this year.
Back to this game: This was a very satisfying series win, and the Cubs only lost the first game because of one bad pitch by Matthew Boyd to Tommy Edman. The Cubs showed that they can stay right there with the Dodgers, and they’ll have two more against them to wrap up their season series at Wrigley Field next week. More on the Cubs’ series win from BCB’s JohnW53:
This is the third consecutive series that the Cubs have won at Dodger Stadium. They also took two of three in 2023 and 2024. They had won three in a row only once before, one series in 1988 and two in 1989. This was the Cubs’ 121st series at LA. It is just the 32nd they have won.
If you’re starting to feel really good about the 11-7 Cubs… well, so am I. They’re clearly one of the better teams in baseball this year, and now are sixth overall in MLB dot com’s power rankings.
The Cubs will undoubtedly have had a very happy bus ride to San Diego by the time you read this recap. They’ll open a three-game series against the Padres Monday evening at Petco Park. Jameson Taillon will start for the Cubs and Dylan Cease will go for San Diego. Game time is 8:40 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.