Feel better now? Even a little?
The Cubs put together a varied offense Saturday night in St. Louis and crushed the Cardinals 9-1.
Let’s begin at the beginning, because the Cubs did. Michael Busch led off with a double and advanced to third on a ground out.
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Kyle Tucker singled Busch in [VIDEO].
Then Tucker stole second. That was significant, per BCB’s JohnW53:
Kyle Tucker’s first-inning steal was the Cubs’ first in 11 games, since they had three against the White Sox on July 27. The Cubs had not even attempted a steal during their 10-game drought, which was their longest since they went 11 games without a steal, April 5-16 of last year.
Carson Kelly followed with a single. Tucker was going to stop at third, but when Jordan Walker’s throw into the infield got away from Willson Contreras, Kelly took off for second and Tucker scored [VIDEO].
Colin Rea got through the bottom of the first easily and then the Cubs offense exploded for four in the second.
With one out, Dansby Swanson singled and stole second. Matt Shaw followed with a walk, and then Michael Busch smashed this three-run homer [VIDEO].
And in case you had forgotten:
Suzuki followed with a double, and one out later Kelly had his second hit of the night, scoring Seiya [VIDEO].
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In the third, the Cubs plated yet another run. With two out, Swanson singled, his second hit of the game.
Matt Shaw’s triple scored Swanson [VIDEO].
After yet another scoreless inning from Rea, the Cubs made it 8-0 in the fourth. With one out, Tucker walked and Kelly had his third hit of the game, another single. One out later, Ian Happ’s single scored Tucker [VIDEO].
The Cubs’ ninth run scored in the fifth on Shaw’s eighth home run of the year [VIDEO].
The Cubs had scored in each of the first five innings of this game. Scoring in every inning is extremely rare, and the nine runs the Cubs scored over those five innings turned out to be all they’d get. They were more than enough, given the strong outing from Rea, who gave the Cardinals a consolation run in the sixth but otherwise was outstanding. Rea allowed just three hits and struck out six [VIDEO].
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Here’s more on Rea’s outing [VIDEO].
Caleb Thielbar, Taylor Rogers and Drew Pomeranz threw one scoreless inning each, though with a bit of traffic on the bases (four hits and two walks allowed). Here’s the final out [VIDEO].
So. Apparently the Cubs hitters are still pretty good, because they put together a varied offense with 13 hits, including two doubles, a triple and two home runs, along with three walks and two stolen bases. Hopefully this is the start of getting out of the team-wide slump they’ve been in for a couple of weeks. The only starters who did not contribute were Nico Hoerner (0-for-4) and Pete Crow-Armstrong (0-for-5), and PCA is in a horrific funk, now 1-for-27 with 12 strikeouts since Aug. 2. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him but let’s hope he figures things out soon. Even with this bad run, PCA still leads the NL in doubles (31) and bWAR (6.2).
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The Brewers, as you surely know, continue to refuse to lose. They won their eighth straight game Saturday and so the Cubs continue to trail them by five games in the NL Central.
The Cubs go for the series win in St. Louis Sunday evening. Shōta Imanaga will start for the Cubs and Sonny Gray goes for St. Louis. Game time Sunday is 6:10 p.m. CT and the game will be ESPN’s featured Sunday Night Baseball game. The network is also running a Statcast-focused broadcast of this game on ESPN2.