On Monday, the wind was blowing out at Wrigley Field at 15 miles per hour on a hot evening. Not a single home run left the yard.
On Tuesday, the wind was blowing out at Wrigley Field at 19 miles per hour on a hot evening, 92 degrees at game time. Nine home runs – five by the Cubs and four by the Padres – headed to the bleachers (and Waveland!). The wind didn’t actually have much to do with it, as only one of the home runs Tuesday was wind-aided. The Cubs outlasted the Padres 9-7 during this home-run
festival, their fourth win in a row and 14th in their last 18 games.
The long balls began on the fifth pitch of the game by Matthew Boyd. Fernando Tatis Jr. deposited that baseball on Waveland:
But that’s all the Padres would get in that inning. Boyd set down the next three hitters on just seven pitches.
The Cubs wasted no time getting that run back. With one out, Alex Bregman walked. He was forced at second by Seiya Suzuki, but when Tatis’ throw went into the Padres dugout, Suzuki took second.
Carson Kelly singled in Suzuki [VIDEO].
In the top of the second, Nico Hoerner flashed some glove [VIDEO].
Nico stole a hit from Jackson Merrill and turned it into an out. This is just another example of how good the Cubs defense is.
The Cubs took the lead in the second. With one out, Swanson sent a ball deep into the left-field bleachers [VIDEO].
After that, Kevin Alcántara singled and Pete Crow-Armstrong walked.
Then Alex Bregman launched one [VIDEO].
That was Bregman’s first home run since June 11 and just his second of the month. Maybe, just maybe, this will begin a good run for him.
The Padres made it 5-3 off Matthew Boyd in the third with another long ball, this one a two-run shot by Manny Machado. That could have been more if not for yet another diving play by Nico [VIDEO].
After that, Boyd settled down and didn’t allow any further runs into the sixth. He helped himself out with his own defense to end the fifth [VIDEO].
Meanwhile, the Cubs extended their lead in the bottom of the fifth with more long balls. With one out, Michael Busch hit his 10th [VIDEO].
One out later, Ian Happ singled and Swanson smashed his second home run of the evening [VIDEO].
Swanson had a huge series in New York, didn’t do anything in Milwaukee and now has had two good games against the Padres. Over his last 12 games: .340/373/.830 (16-for-47) with three doubles, a triple, six home runs, 21 (!) RBI, four stolen bases and 12 runs scored. In that span he’s raised his season OPS from .587 to .691.
Boyd allowed two singles leading off the San Diego sixth and was lifted for Javier Assad, who immediately got Xander Bogaerts to hit into a double play, then got another out to end the inning. The Cubs made it 9-3 in the bottom of the inning on PCA’s 18th home run [VIDEO].
Okay, that one needed a bit of help from the wind.
Assad threw a scoreless seventh and then ran out of gas in the eighth. Gavin Sheets smacked a three-run homer and Tatis went deep for the second time to make it 9-7. A walk brought Machado to the plate as the potential tying run. Tyler Ferguson entered the game and struck him out [VIDEO].
The Cubs got two runners on leading off the bottom of the eighth, but could not score.
Ferguson began the ninth inning by getting two fly balls to left. With Merrill coming to bat, Craig Counsell summoned Ryan Rolison to finish things off. It took Rolison just three pitches to get another fly to left to end the game [VIDEO].
For Rolison, it was his first career MLB save. The Cubs have now had 10 different pitchers record saves this year. In addition to Rolison: Daniel Palencia, Jacob Webb, Caleb Thielbar, Colin Rea, Hoby Milner, Ben Brown, Trent Thornton, Jordan Wicks and Corbin Martin. The leader is still Palencia… with three.
About the Cubs’ five-homer game, from BCB’s JohnW53:
The Cubs had hit three home runs in nine of their 85 games this season before this game. This is their first with more than three.
Last year, they hit at least four in 17 games, eight of them at home. Their longest stretch with no more than three was 36 games.
They went 92 games between four-homer ones in 2024, 80 in 2023, 69 in 2022 and 64 in 2021.
Their last game before this one with at least five homers was the one where they set the franchise record of eight, July 4, 2025 against the Cardinals.
Here’s Dansby on his two-homer game [VIDEO].
And here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].
The Cubs thus finish June on a roll. After a rough start to the month they end it with a 16-10 record, and as noted earlier, a four-game winning streak and a 14-4 run. The Brewers also won Tuesday so the Cubs continue to trail them by 5.5 games in the NL Central.
The Cubs will go for a series sweep over the Padres Wednesday afternoon at Wrigley Field and it’s supposed to be hot and windy again. Colin Rea will start for the Cubs and Walker Buehler goes for San Diego. Game time is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.
