No, we're not leaving you. But there is only one week left in the regular season, so we've got to look ahead to last call and start wrapping this whole thing up. Many teams wrapped up their 81-game home schedule this weekend. We're down to only 15 teams who can mathematically fill the 10 playoff spots, so half of them are just going through the motions. So we'll carry on with finishing out all 2,430 regular-season games, but as a former co-worker once declared between 3:45 and 3:50 every afternoon, "it's pack-up time" because we're punching out at 4:00, darn it.
Just last week we elaborated on how no-hitters aren't our thing. Everyone's obsessed with them (although maybe not after this year), and it's hard to write about a game where nothing happens. Give us a game where one thing happens anyday.
That day would be Friday, when remarkably we had the only 1-0 score of the entire week, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer team. In case this is the last time we write about the "Cleveland Indians", don't forget that they've been no-hit four times this season, even though MLB only counts three of them. Either way that's a record, and while they did muster a whopping six hits in this one against the White Sox, they weren't the ones with the run. Nope, that would be Luis Robert's solo homer in the 5th. Only twice before in team history have the White Sox beaten Cleveland on a lone solo homer: Daniel Palka hit a walkoff version on August 10, 2018, and Carlton Fisk did the honors on July 19, 1985. Their last 1-0 win in Cleveland via any method was September 30, 2009, on a Paul Konerko single in the 6th.
Shane Bieber, meanwhile, in his return from a months-long injury, actually didn't give up a hit, although he lasted only 3 innings and 34 pitches. He's the first Indians starter to get "pulled" from a no-hitter since Zach Plesac got a spot start coming out of the All-Star break in 2019.
And maybe that name change will help. After all, there's no point in becoming "Guardians" over a bunch of goose eggs. Friday was the eighth home game this season where Cleveland got shut out. In 27 seasons at Jacobs/Progressive Field, that's only happened one other time, when they had nine such defeats in 2009.
Friday was just a continuation of the White Sox/Indians adventures, however. Way back on June 2, the final game of their prior series got rained out, and-- never one to miss a chance to get shut out in a home game-- Cleveland held off rescheduling it until September. That meant that we started this weekend's series with a 1:00 game on Thursday. And that usually means it's going to be 1-0 or 2-1 because nobody's awake until the 5th inning.
Apparently Tim Anderson had a couple extra cups of coffee on the way to the stadium. While it won't be his most memorable home run of the year, he opened the game by driving Aaron Civale's third pitch into the seats in right-center. Anderson also hit Chicago's previous leadoff homer at Progressive, back on April 13, 2017; he's the only White Sox batter to hit two there.
And soon it became apparent that Civale was the one who was having trouble waking up. Luis Robert starts the 2nd by homering against him. Four pitches later, so does Eloy Jimenez. Jimenez was also the back end of the previous back-to-back homers for the White Sox in Cleveland; James McCann provided the front half on September 3, 2019. Civale gives up two more singles to bring up Anderson again. The coffee musta been a double shot. Because he sends another one out of the park to right to make it 6-0 already. Turns out only one other batter in White Sox history has led off a game with a home run, and then gone deep again in the 2nd inning of the same game. And that batter... is Tim Anderson. He did it against Detroit on August 17 of last year.
The damage is done, and this game limps along to a 7-2 final, but it also puts Civale in some interesting company. Only two other Cleveland pitchers have given up 4 homers while getting no more than 5 outs. Tom Hilgendorf, who is from eastern Iowa right near Tim Anderson's Field Of Dreams (and who passed away earlier this year), did it on April 14, 1974. And Cal McLish-- who holds the distinction of being the only person to pitch for both Illinois teams, both Ohio teams, AND both Pennsylvania teams-- pulled it off in Boston on May 22, 1957.
Now there is another game to be had, and since the White Sox were awake for the first one, they obviously went and took a nap in between. (Picture this. In the clubhouse. On their little mats like preschoolers.) Because this is the game where nothing really happens until the 6th inning. Mike Wright has uncorked a wild pitch to give Cleveland a 1-0 edge, but then Zach Plesac loads the bases before departing. Then Andrew Vaughn unloads them in multiple ways. He bloops one to left which easily scores one run, then Brian Goodwin gets hung up in a rundown between second and third, but long enough for Yasmani Grandal to also score and give Chicago the lead. That would be the first blown save.
Owen Miller counters with his own bases-loaded single in the bottom half and now Cleveland is up 3-2 again. That's the third time in Progressive Field history that both teams hit a lead-flipping single; Victor Martinez and Boston's Jed Lowrie matched them on April 15, 2008, and Julio Franco cancelled out Damon Buford of the Rangers on May 18, 1996.
Enter Emanuel Clase for the 7th. All he does is give up three straight singles to start the inning and somehow escape with only one run. But that's a second blown save and another tie game. Bryan Shaw, who blew the first one, was also part of the last time the Indians blew two saves in a win; he did with Cody Allen against Detroit on September 10, 2015.
In a win, you say? Ah-yup. Remember The New Rules (when we choose to enforce them, see next item). MLB considers this a doubleheader, even though you have to pay separate admissions and there's nap time in between. That means it's a 7-inning game. And Oscar Mercado says we don't need no stinkin' free runners. He's going to crank a walkoff homer for a 5-3 win. If you guessed it was the first walkoff homer in Cleveland history hit prior to the 9th inning, you'd be correct, although technically it could have happened prior to last year. In the old days, games were frequently shortened by agreement for travel reasons, or just like beer-league softball, it's starting to get dark so we just declare this is going to be the last inning.
But when is the last inning really the last inning? Well, maybe when it happened on July 19? Let's flash back to a rainy night in Atlanta on that Monday when the opener of a series with San Diego got postponed. No worries, we'll play two on Wednesday. And thanks to The New Rules, both of those will be 7-inning games.
Now, even a 7-inning game still requires each team to bat 5 times to be official. So what to do when the tarp comes out in the middle of the 5th and the Braves haven't had their final turn yet? (And they're trailing, so they need to play it.) Why, suspend the game and wait two months, of course.
This is a slightly different oddity than the Mets/Marlins game that lingered in baseball limbo for 142 days. Because that July 21 game was the Padres' only trip to Atlanta this season. There is no remaining game before which to finish it. So we go to Plan B (actually B-3 in the rulebook), which is to finish it at the opposite site. The Braves do have one trip to San Diego coming up... a mere 64 days from now. Heck, that's less than half as long as the Mets' one. What could go wrong.
Ever heard the song "It Never Rains In Southern California"? Turns out that's a song. Using a fairly loose definition of "never". Granted, it is not frequent, to the point where the Padres have a list in their media guide of all 18 rainouts in their 53-year history. Plus the eight delays since Petco Park opened in 2004, two of which were for bees and not rain.
So does it count as nine delays if this game is technically still on July 21 in Atlanta? Because our resumption of a game that was postponed by rain, then delayed by rain when it got played, then suspended by rain and moved to the opposite site, is now delayed by rain at said opposite site where it "never" rains. Got that? The 5:00 scheduled restart ended up occurring a little after 6 and not ending until almost 7:30. How does it end, you ask? Naturally, in completely-backwards fashion.
Adam Duvall bats for the Braves in the bottom of the 6th. He hits a solo homer off Daniel Hudson to tie the game. Even though the record's going to show him hitting it on July 21 in Atlanta, he actually did hit it at Petco Park in September. Only two other Braves batters have hit one of those in the 6th or later: Ronald Acuña in July 2019, and Jorge Sosa in May 2006. Care to know what else Adam Duvall did on July 21? Oh yeah, he started for the Marlins. At Nationals Park. With Daniel Hudson in the other bullpen. That's the Nationals' bullpen, not the Padres'. They both got traded at the deadline, with this suspended game still looming. In fact, that trade is why Duvall couldn't also stay in that Marlins suspended game from April. So he lost the chance to finish one suspended game but picked up a chance to finish a different one. And that's not the weird part. Duvall and Hudson technically played in two games against each other on the same day, but each for different teams in both games. According to Elias, the closest anything like that has come to happening was on May 30, 1922, when Cliff Heathcote of the Cardinals and Max Flack of the Cubs got traded for each other in between games of a doubleheader.
By the way, our 66-day adventure of a 7-inning game is still tied. We now have Fernando Tatis at the plate at Petco Park in the 7th. And he's going to whomp his 41st homer of the year, which will retroactively go down as his 30th. And wait, if Tatis just homered at Petco in the last inning, that should be a walkoff, no? Nope. Because he's batting in the top half. Since a 7th-inning homer wouldn't be a walkoff anyway in Normal Times, we have to phrase this one just right: Tatis is the first batter in Padres history to hit a go-ahead homer in the final scheduled inning of a game in their own park and have it not be a walkoff. And even better, Tatis's 29th homer... was in the first game of this same messed-up DH back in July. He's the first Padres batter to go yard in both games of a road doubleheader since Ryan Schimpf in St Louis on July 20, 2016. And he hit them 64 days and 1882 miles apart, one of them in his home stadium. Uh-huh. Okay.
In similar time-traveling news, Mark Melançon got the save on Friday by finishing off the Braves in the bottom of the 7th. That happens to be the 2,000th save in Padres history, which began in the same year as the official save rule. Except it kinda wasn't because it happened on July 21. So it will appear to be their 1,991st. (Turns out Melançon has all nine in between, so he gets the honor either way.) Guess who got team save 1,990? That was Melançon in the first game back on July 21. It took him over two months, but he'll go down as the third pitcher in Padres history to get a save in both games of a doubleheader. The others are Fernando Rodney on May 11, 2016, against the Cubs, and Rollie Fingers on May 30, 1977, against the Giants.
Yeah, the recap of that game felt like it took 64 days too, didn't it? To the point where you almost forgot that we're resuming this suspended game before another regularly-scheduled Braves/Padres tilt. Which was supposed to start at 7:00. Suspended game didn't end until 7:30. So the "real" game doesn't start until 8:05. (That's 11 back east for you Braves fans.) Though there is still the lingering question of how many innings we're going to play. Because MLB wants doubleheaders to be 7 innings. Has this suddenly become one? Also, there's long been a minor-league rule that if a suspended game is continued prior to a regularly-scheduled contest, the suspension is played out to 9 but then the regular game gets shortened to 7. But what if the suspended game was only 7 to start with?
In another variation of going outside its own rule book, MLB apparently decreed back in July when the game was suspended that the regular September 24 game would still be 9 innings. Starting at 11 pm back east. Oof. Fortunately the players had some sympathy, or were just jealous of the White Sox and their nap time, and ripped through this one in a tidy 2 hours 28 minutes. That's largely because Max Fried ripped through the Padres lineup, facing just 29 batters and allowing 3 hits (plus one double play). He's the first Braves pitcher to throw multiple shutouts in a season since Shelby Miller in 2015, and the first to throw one in San Diego since Tom Glavine 2-hit the Padres on August 13, 1998.
Dansby Swanson tacked on his 27th double in the 4-0 win, and while everyone usually likes round numbers, it made him, Ozzie Albies, and Austin Riley the first trio of Braves players with 27 homers and 27 doubles in the same season since Gary Sheffield, Chipper Jones, and Javy Lopez all did it in 2003.
The teams then proceeded to play a little back-and-forth affair on Saturday that finally ended when Jorge Soler doubled home free runner Travis d'Arnaud in the 10th. It was just the third go-ahead double the Braves had ever hit in extra innings in San Diego; the others were by Bill Pecota in April 1994 and Jeff Treadway in June 1990. Soler also became the first Braves leadoff batter with a 4-RBI game in San Diego since Kenny Lofton did it on May 27, 1997.
Manny Machado also came away with 4 RBIs after hitting a grand slam in the 5th for a temporary Padres lead. The Padres had never hit a slam against the Braves at Petco Park before Saturday. And the only one they hit at The Murph was back when it was still called The Murph-- Marvell Wynne off Charlie Puleo on September 11, 1988.
If you actually haven't heard the 1970s folk classic "It Never Rains In Southern Calfornia", well, don't let us deprive you of that opportunity. Intermission!
You see a trivia question sometimes about the number of possible ways for a batter to reach first. The answer always varies depending on how you count "uncaught third strike" (is it one category, or does wild pitch vs passed ball count as two?), whether sacrifice bunts and dropped sacrifice flies get lumped together, etc. Usually the "answer" is around seven or eight ways. But one of those is hovering on the verge of a record-setting season.
If you've ever kept score-- and then tried to balance the sheet afterwards-- you know the one. The one which never happens and which causes fits over runs being earned or unearned. "Interference or obstruction".
By "never" happens, we mean, in the same way that it "never" rains in southern California. With a week to go in the season, catcher's interference has been called 61 times in the majors this year, matching the number from the 2019 campaign. But as far as we know, that's a record. Even with Jacoby Ellsbury earning half of them, most of the previous decade hovered in the 40s as far as CI counts. As recently as 2008 it was in the 20s. Before the 1960s we don't have good data because the call was so rare that the leagues didn't even report it consistently. But the last two of our 61 from this year are going to take us right back to Petco Park.
Before the Braves arrived from their 2-month holding pattern, the Giants were in town for the first part of the week. Tuesday saw Tommy La Stella hit a leadoff homer against Kevin Gausman, joining Donovan Solano (2019) and Ray Durham (2004) as the only Giants batters to hit one at Petco Park. And then Wednesday saw La Stella make even more Giants history, becoming their first known batter ever to lead off a game with a catcher's interference award. The last time the Padres committed one against the first batter of a game was on July 1, 2016, by Derek Norris against (of course) Jacoby Ellsbury. La Stella's CI would start the path to Kris Bryant's bases-loaded double, the second one the Giants have ever hit in the 1st inning in San Diego. Rob Andrews hit the other against Tom Griffin on July 13, 1977.
Ah, but two teams can play this game. (Actually, the rule kinda says they have to, but you know what we mean.) With the Giants still holding that 3-0 lead in the 5th, Jake Cronenworth steps to the plate with the bases loaded. And is he going to hit a grand slam? Well, we'll never know. (This is why you can't assume an out on a CI call when scoring, because the at-bat never gets a chance to play out.) Because he clips the glove of Buster Posey and gets awarded first base. With the bases loaded. Score a run. Although Posey hasn't been called for a CI since August 2013, a bunch of other Giants catchers have. Since the start of last year, they've committed seven such infractions; the only team to have more is the White Sox (9). The only other one the Padres have ever received with the bases loaded was to Cory Spangenberg (by Atlanta's Christian Bethancourt) on June 11, 2015. And the last one the Giants committed with the bases loaded was by Milt May against the Pirates on August 29, 1981.
And among those 61 occurrences, Wednesday was the first game this season where both teams were called for the infraction. All's fair in "glove" and war?
10 For The Road
(Or, who are you and what have you done with the AL West?)
Let's ask Siri the question in our subtitle. Because the answer will come from Jose Siri, who began the Astros' week by hitting their first-ever leadoff homer in Anaheim. That dinger off Jaime Barria, and the Astros having history in both leagues, leaves only three opponents against whom they've never hit a leadoff homer on the road-- Boston, Kansas City, and Minnesota.
However, this one looked like your typical AL West game after that. Framber Valdez scattered 6 hits across 7 innings. Barria gave up 10 total hits, but four were in that 1st inning and he settled down to get into the 6th. But welcome, September callups. Andrew Wantz, who did a cup of coffee in July but has spent most of this year in Salt Lake City, gets the 8th. Jose Marte, who started the year at the Giants' high-A team in Eugene, Ore., and was in the Tony Watson trade at the deadline (yeah, we didn't hear about it either), gets the 9th. And both of them get lit up for 4 runs and a homer. In the 8th it's a 3-run shot by Martin Maldonado. In the 9th it's a grand slam by Marwin Gonzalez, actually the third one the Astros have hit at The Big A this season. However it's only the second one they've hit in the 9th inning of a road game, along with the one Yordan Alvarez smacked in Detroit on June 24. The only other time they connected for two of those in a season was 1969, and those came in the same game-- Denis Menke and Jim Wynn at Shea Stadium on July 30.
Monday's 10-0 final qualifies as the Astros' largest shutout ever against the Angels, home or road, topping a 7-0 on July 21, 2018. So how to top this one? How about by scoring 10 more runs on Tuesday? Kyle Tucker and Aledmys Diaz go back-to-back in the 2nd. Jose Altuve joins Diaz with multi-run hits in the 5th. Maldonado homers for the second straight day to lead off the 6th, the first Astros #9 batter ever to go deep in consecutive games in Anaheim. Meanwhile, Maldonado also walked twice, something he also did on August 20 against Seattle. He's the only #9 batter in Astros history to have a homer and multiple walks in a game twice.
Things are not as lopsided this time, notably thanks to Phil Gosselin's 3-run homer in the Angels' half of the 6th. Gosselin will end the game as the Angels' first cleanup batter with a homer, a double, and 3 RBI in a loss since Howie Kendrick on September 23, 2013. Tuesday's 10-5 final was just the second time the Astros have scored in double digits in consecutive games in Anaheim; they won by counts of 14-2 and 10-4 on May 4-5, 2019. Houston then added a 9-5 win on Wednesday with a 4-run 12th inning off Sam Selman after neither team scored their first two free runners. That game was the first time Houston had hung a 4-spot or more in an inning numbered 12 or higher since July 27, 1994, in Cincinnati.
The Angels had to wait for Houston to get out of the way, but by Saturday the Mariners had come to town and it was time for their own offense to erupt. Starting pitcher Tyler Anderson decided to help matters by giving up a leadoff single to Brandon Marsh, then a triple to Shohei Ohtani. Then there's the home run to Luis Rengifo in the 2nd. And in the 3rd the proverbial wheels come off. Another leadoff single by Marsh. Another triple by Ohtani, the first Angels batter with multiple three-baggers in a home game since Erick Aybar did it against the Twins on September 2, 2011. Then three more singles and a walk to make it 7-1 and Anderson's evening is done. He's going to become the first pitcher in Mariners history to give up 9 hits and 9 runs while getting no more than 6 outs. That's because Yohan Ramirez didn't fare much batter. He got two outs but also gave up a single to Rengifo to load them back up. Marsh then gets plunked to drive in a run, and then Ohtani walks to close the line. Ohtani has thus become the second batter in Angels history with 2 triples and 3 RBI in a home game; Bobby Knoop, who led the AL in triples in 1966, did it against the Senators on September 2 of that year.
This is eventually going to culminate with an 8-run 3rd inning, the Angels' first since May 30, 2017, against the Braves. That had been the longest drought of any team without posting a "snowman" or more; that "honor" now passes to the Yankees. They'll pile on three more runs in the 5th, two of them on a Jared Walsh double; Walsh would end Saturday as the first Angels batter with 4 hits and 4 RBI in a home game since Mike Trout against Texas on July 26, 2015. And on the other side, the Angels defense used Jaime Barria as an "opener" again and then deployed Jhonathan Diaz to basically go as long as he wanted. They're off scoring 14 runs, he's got kind of a long leash. And that leash lasted for the rest of the game; after Barria gave up three hits but retired two of them on double plays, Diaz worked the last 7 innings and gave up only 3 hits. The last Angels "reliever" to do that was Felix Peña on July 12, 2019. If that rings any halos, it's because Peña threw 7 innings after Taylor Cole threw the first two, in the game where the Angels honored Tyler Skaggs by throwing a combined no-hitter.
Oh, but we still have one more AL West team that's on the road to scoring 14 runs. See, after the Astros finally got done dumping on Anaheim, they headed up to Oakland for their final series of the year against the A's. On Friday they ran into Frankie Montas who held them to just 2 hits. So when Brandon Bielak gives up two walks, two hits, and a sac fly in the 3rd, it's already not looking good for Houston. But we still have Yimi Garcia and Brooks Raley in the bullpen to try and keep it within striking distance. Hmm, if "striking distance" means Sacramento, then maybe. Garcia gives up two singles, a walk, a double before he gets pulled. Raley walks Mark Canha to reload the bases and then meets pinch hitter Chad Pinder. Who sends a ball in the general direction of Sacramento for the Athletics' first pinch-hit slam since Scott Sizemore hit one in Arlington on September 10, 2011.
In the 8th it is Seth Martinez's turn, and let's see how that went. Single, walk, single, walk, RBI single by Starling Marte, 3-run double by Matt Olson. (In other words, it didn't go well.) That single gave Marte 4 hits and 4 RBI in Friday's game, joining Nate Frieman (August 15, 2013) as the only A's hitters to do that against the Astros. Marte, Olson, and Pinder with the grand slam are also the first trio of A's batters with 4 RBI in the same game since Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss, and George Kottaras did it against Boston on August 31, 2012.
The final score of 14-2 matched Oakland's largest win ever against Houston; they dropped a 13-1 to back up Jeff Samardzija on July 24, 2014.
Cardinals/Cubs is one of the three big rivalries, right up there with Yanks/Sawx and Dodgers/Giants. That tends to happen when you can almost get from one stadium to the other without changing roads. (And if the Cubs still played at West Side Park, this would actually be true.) This week, not so much given that the Cubs are going to finish around 70-90 and were eliminated 10 days ago. But the Cardinals still have a wild-card spot to play for. And play for it they have been. Two weeks ago they were in a logjam of mediocre NL teams hovering just above .500 while the Dodgers, Giants, and Brewers ran away with three of the five playoff spots. Coming into the Cubs series they had rattled off 12 straight wins to break out of a virtual tie with the Phillies and then jump both the Reds and Padres.
Before we get there, however, we head up the road for Thursday's series finale in Milwaukee, which was decided by a final score of Cardinals 8, Tyrone Taylor 5. Taylor hit a grand slam in the 1st inning, the eighth one they've hit since Miller Park opened in 2001, and one more than they hit at County Stadium. He added a solo shot in the 4th and thus became the third Brewers batter ever to have 5 RBI and account for all the team's runs in a loss. Aramis Ramirez did it in St Louis on May 17, 2013, and Russell Branyan did it against the Cubs on August 18, 2004. However, the Cardinals' "8" was provided largely by Paul Goldschmidt, who hit a tying homer in the 7th and then an insurance homer in the 9th after a passed ball gave them the lead in between. Goldy is only the fourth Cardinals batter to have two homers in the 7th or later of a game in Milwaukee. Albert Pujols (April 11, 2010) and J.D. Drew (October 3, 2001) both did it in losses. And lest you think we forgot the Braves years, the first was Bill White on July 30, 1961.
Friday's opener in Chicago will actually be two openers, because the teams had bagged their last game before the All-Star break rather than wait around in the rain and play it at like 7:00 at night. Places to go. Four-day naps to take. In the first game, Goldy breaks open the scoring again with a 3rd-inning homer. By the 5th, J.A. Happ's day is done and Jose Rondon will pinch-hit for him. And he'll hit a 2-run homer to make it 4-0. Goldy caps another rally in the 6th such that the Cards are ahead 8-0. Meanwhile in the bottom half, Matt Duffy walks and Sergio Alcantara gets sent up to bat. Wham, another 2-run pinch-hit homer, the first game at Wrigley Field where both teams hit one since Dave Rader and the Mets' Ed Kranepool did it on June 26, 1978. But despite a little Cubs rally of their own, this is only a 7-inning game and they just ran out of chances. Final score of the 13th straight Cardinals win: 8-5. Same as yesterday in Milwaukee. The last time St Louis repeated a score starting with a 6 or higher was August 31 and September 1 of 2015 against Washington. Want to guess what the repeated score was on those two days? Yeah, 8-5.
Now we still have a night game to play (at 8:05 Eastern, since that's a theme here). And we have a whole lot of bullpen guys who haven't pitched in a few days. And we have the wind blowing out to center. And we have starter Jack Flaherty back from a shoulder strain after a month of inaction. Hmmmm, let's see how this goes.
Zach Davies spots the Cardinals 3 runs by giving up 4 hits and a walk in the 1st. That's probably not good against a team riding a 13-game win streak. Flaherty uses his first three pitches back from the injured list to strike out Rafael Ortega. His sixth one is a single by Frank Schwindel. His twelfth is a 2-run bomb from Patrick Wisdom. He's then out of the game after walking Ian Happ, leaving the Cards bullpen to try and collect 26 more outs. Flaherty is the first St Louis starter to give up multiple runs and get only 1 out since Mark Petkovsek did it in Cleveland on June 24, 1998.
Meanwhile, back in Zach Davies Land, he starts the 2nd with two more hits and a 3-run bomb from Tyler O'Neill. Who, we haven't mentioned yet, also homered in the day game. He's the first Cardinals batter to homer in both games of a twinbill at Wrigley since Matt Carpenter did it on July 21, 2018. And with Justin Steele earlier in the day, Davies has completed the first doubleheader where both Cubs starters gave up 6 runs since Carlos Zambrano and Juan Cruz did it in Pittsburgh on September 19, 2003.
Michael Rucker will replace Davies for the 3rd and, within 10 pitches, give up back-to-back homers to Lars Nootbaar and Paul DeJong. So now it's 8-2 and this turns into a romp. Nootbaar singles to make it 9-3 and destroy any hope of another 8-5 game. Adam Morgan takes over on the hill in the 7th, and while it took Rucker 10 pitches to give up back-to-back homers, Morgan can do it in half that time. (Pace of play!) Harrison Bader and our buddy Lars Nootbaar take him deep for an 11-4 lead and another fun note. That's twice in this game the Cardinals have gone back-to-back. The last time they did that at Wrigley was on July 12, 1996, by John Mabry & Gary Gaetti in the 3rd, then Ray Lankford & Ron Gant in the 5th-- with all four coming off Steve Trachsel.
Morgan gives up two more hits and just can't get that final out to end this mess, so Sergio Alcantara-- he of the pinch-hit homer in the day game-- wanders in from second base to encourage Tyler O'Neill to fly out to end the inning. He only threw 4 pitches, but it still makes Alcantara the first Cubs position player in (at least) the modern era to homer in one game of a doubleheader and pitch in the other. Final score, 12-4. Cardinals tie their team record with a 14th consecutive win. And they score 8+ runs in both games of a twinbill at Wrigley since August 31, 2002, when they won 8-1 and 10-4. We can confirm that one because we were there.
So finally we move on to Saturday. Jon Lester, in his triumphant return to Wrigley Field, decides to let his old mates have 8 hits and 4 runs. It turns out Lester also had that line in a game with the Nationals back on May 17, for whom he pitched before getting traded for Lane Thomas at the deadline. The last pitcher to have such a game at Wrigley for two different teams in the same season was Bob Chipman in 1944; he started that year with the Dodgers and then was traded to the Cubs-- on D-Day itself, no less-- for Eddie Stanky.
So the Cardinals have a little hole to climb out of if they want to get their 15th straight win. Harrison Bader helps with a solo homer in the 2nd. Tyler O'Neill goes yard again in the 4th. But the real damage doesn't hit until the 7th when Codi Heuer is handed the ball for the Cubs. He faces four batters and gives up base hits to all of them, in the process getting both a blown save and a loss. Bader has the third of the four hits, and then Paul DeJong gives the Cards the lead for good with a sac fly off Scott Effross. St Louis hadn't hit a go-ahead sac fly in the 7th or later at Wrigley since Yadier Molina hit one off the guy he's now catching, Jon Lester, on May 6, 2015, to break a runless tie. Bader, meanwhile, ended up with 4 hits and 2 stolen bases, the first Cardinal to pull that off at Wrigley since Gregg Jefferies on June 19, 1993.
DeJong's sac fly may have made it 5-4, but his 2-run homer in the 9th eventually makes it 8-4. So you've probably heard that the Cardinals did indeed set that team-record winning streak with 15 in a row, breaking a "W14" from July 2 through 18 of 1935. But Ian Happ isn't done yet. If the Cubs can't win, they may as well lose by another identical score. In the days of type-setting, some sports-page person would love this. Because Happ hits a solo homer with 2 outs in the 9th to make our final score-- what else?!-- 8 to 5. Now, because of the doubleheader on Friday we can't say three straight games. But the Cardinals are the first team to win a game on three straight days by the same exact score, where the winning number is 8 or higher (2-1 happens all the time), since the Royals dropped three straight 10-4's in June 2004.
And while the Cardinals did extend that streak to 16 on Sunday, it was "only" by a count of 4-2. Harrison Bader became the first batter in team history to have a home run and multiple RBIs in three consecutive games with all of them at Wrigley. And St Louis is the first National League team to string together 16 wins in a row since the 1951 Giants. You might have heard how that team eventually won the pennant.
Bottom Of The Bag
⚾ Orioles, Monday: Second time ever shutting out the Phillies IN Philadelphia (any score, any game). The other is, oh, only the clinching game of the 1983 World Series.
⚾ Jake Diekman, Thursday: First A's pitcher to give up 2 homers and blow a save while getting 1 out in a home game since T.J. Mathews against the Orioles on May 29, 1999.
⚾ Kyle Isbel, Friday: Second #9 batter in Royals history to have a triple and a double in the same game in Detroit. Buck Martinez did it in a 21-7 win at Tiger Stadium on June 15, 1976.
⚾ Yu Chang, Tuesday: First Clevelander with a bases-loaded triple and a hit-by-pitch in the same game since Wayne Kirby against Detroit, August 5, 1993.
⚾ Nationals, Monday: First time committing a "bounce-off" (walkoff wild pitch) since April 17, 2008 (Joel Hanrahan scoring Damion Easley of the Mets).
⚾ Hunter Dozier, Saturday: Second batter in Royals history with a triple, a double, and a sac fly in a loss. Danny Tartabull did it at Fenway Park on August 16, 1991.
⚾ Kyle Higashioka & Gary Sanchez, Wednesday: First time two Yankees catchers had an extra-base hit and 2 RBI in the same game since Thurman Munson and Elrod Hendricks did it against Detroit on October 1, 1977.
⚾ Ronald Torreyes, Thursday: First Phillies pinch hitter with a lead-flipping homer against the Pirates since Mike Lieberthal on June 16, 1998.
⚾ Willie Calhoun, Sunday: Second Rangers batter with a triple and a double in the same game at Camden Yards. Other is Gary Redus on August 23, 1993.
⚾ Pete Alonso, Tue-Wed: Fourth Mets player ever to homer in consecutive games at Fenway Park. Others are Carlos Delgado (2006), Mike Piazza (2000), and Len Dykstra (1986 World Series).
⚾ Logan Webb, Thursday: First Giants pitcher to give up 4 runs, hit a batter, and throw a wild pitch JUST in the 1st inning since Orel Hershiser at Houston on April 1, 1998.
⚾ Myles Straw, Sunday: First Cleveland leadoff batter with 4 hits and a stolen base, but 0 runs scored, since Miguel Dilone at Texas on August 15, 1982.
⚾ Mets/Brewers, Friday: First game at either Milwaukee stadium where one team hit a leadoff homer and the other hit a leadoff triple since Sandy Alomar Sr and Tommy Harper did it on June 29, 1970.
⚾ J.T. Realmuto, Tuesday: Phillies' first walkoff triple since Steve Jeltz hit one against the Cardinals on August 9, 1987.
⚾ Giancarlo Stanton, Saturday: Second batter in Yankees history to hit a lead-flipping grand slam in the 8th or later at Fenway Park. Johnny Blanchard went deep off Mike Fornieles on July 21, 1961.
⚾ Blue Jays, Monday: First time hitting 3 homers at Tropicana Field and losing since July 31, 2004.
⚾ Tyler Stephenson, Sunday: Second Reds batter to have a homer, a double, and a sac fly against the Nats/Expos franchise. Johnny Bench did it at l� Parc Jarry on July 9, 1973.
⚾ Miles Mikolas, Wednesday: First Cardinals batter with 2 sacrifice bunts and 2 strikeouts (he is a pitcher) in the same game since Tim Jones at Dodger Stadium on August 28, 1993.
⚾ Daulton Varsho, Tuesday: First Diamondbacks batter with a hit, a walk, a sac bunt, and a stolen base all in one game since Chris Young at Coors Field, September 20, 2008.
⚾ Pirates, Saturday: First game where they scored 0 runs, drew 0 walks, and had 0 extra-base hits since June 20, 2015, at Washington. You may remember that one for other reasons.
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