This one felt like a typical Coors Field game — both teams kept hitting and hitting and hitting and for a time, it felt like the Cubs might blow their big early lead.
Fortunately, all that hitting the Cubs did early held up. Dansby Swanson smashed two home runs and drove in six and the Cubs held on for an 11-7 win over the Rockies. The 11 runs were just one less than the Cubs had scored in their previous four games combined, and two more than they scored in a three-game sweep of the Rockies at Wrigley
Field back in May.
Let’s rewind to the beginning.
In the top of the second, Nico Hoerner doubled with one out. Swanson followed with a home run, his 20th [VIDEO].
About that home run, from BCB’s JohnW53:
Swanson’s home run made him the fifth Cub this season to reach 20, following Pete Crow-Armstrong (28), Seiya Suzuki (27), Michael Busch (25) and Kyle Tucker (21). Last year, the Cubs had only three: Ian Happ (25), Busch and Suzuki (both 21).
They finished three previous seasons with five: 1958, 2004 and 2008.
Their record is six, set in 2017 and matched in 2019 and 2023.
In the fourth, the Cubs came a bit closer to matching that franchise record when Ian Happ hit his 17th [VIDEO].
Happ has hit 20 or more in three of the last four years, so it’s certainly possible for him to get there. The Cubs led 3-0 at this point, but Yanquiel Fernandez hit a two-run shot for the Rockies in the bottom of the fourth to bring them to within one run.
The Cubs broke the game open in the top of the fifth. Michael Busch singled, Kyle Tucker walked and Seiya Suzuki singled to load the bases with nobody out.
Now, you know how situations like that have worked recently for the Cubs. Not this time. Pete Crow-Armstrong’s sac fly made the score 4-2 [VIDEO].
Happ followed with a ground-rule double that scored Tucker [VIDEO].
Hoerner walked to load the bases and the Rockies changed pitchers. This did not work out well for them, because Swanson cleared the bases with this triple [VIDEO].
Matt Shaw’s single scored Swanson to make the score 9-2 [VIDEO].
More on the six-run inning from John:
The Cubs’ six-run fifth inning was their fifth six-pack of the season. The previous one had been more than three months ago, on May 23, at Cincinnati. This was the Cubs’ 83rd game since then. They have had two innings with seven runs and one with eight.
With that big a lead and the Cubs wanting to protect Cade Horton, he was lifted after five innings and 70 pitches. For a Coors Field outing where balls were leaving the yard in big numbers, that was a pretty good performance by Horton, who allowed just the two-run homer. He got some help from Shaw defensively [VIDEO].
The Rockies scored a run off Ben Brown in the sixth to make it 9-3, but the Cubs countered that with two in the seventh. The first of those was Swanson’s second homer of the game [VIDEO].
About Dansby’s night, from John:
Dansby Swanson is the first Cub to hit two homers and a bases-loaded triple since at least 1912, first season for which baseball-reference.com has searchable play-level data.
He is the 16th with two homers and a triple of any kind and he is the 135th with a three-run triple.
But the Rockies would not quit. They scored two more off Brown in the seventh to make it 11-5 and plated a pair off Drew Pomeranz in the eighth on a home run by Kyle Farmer and now, well, that’s a little too close. Craig Counsell had to call on Brad Keller to finish off the eighth, which he did with a strikeout [VIDEO].
Andrew Kittredge was summoned to preserve the four-run lead in the ninth, but he immediately got into trouble with a leadoff walk. (Hate those!) That was followed by a single, which put the tying run on deck. That prompted Counsell to begin to warm up Daniel Palencia, which is something he almost certainly did not want to do.
Fortunately, Kittredge then got Warming Bernabel to hit into a double play, and then he retired Fernandez on a fly ball to end the game [VIDEO].
Wins are wins and the Cubs will take them any way they can get them. If it took Coors Field to get the Cubs bats going, well, so much the better. From John, here’s an example of how quiet Cubs bats have been for the last month:
The Cubs scored their fifth run in the fifth inning. They had scored no more than four runs in 16 of their 17 previous games.
Games in which the Cubs have scored at least five runs:
First 105 games: 54 times (51.4 percent)
Last 30 games, including Friday: 7 times (23.3 percent)
The Cubs gained no ground on the Brewers, who also won Friday, so they still trail by 6.5 games in the NL Central. They did pick up a game on the Padres, who lost, so the Cubs lead San Diego by two games. They are also tied with the Dodgers at 77-58 and trail the Phillies by just one game, in case that matters later on.
The Cubs will go for two in a row against the Rockies Saturday evening at Coors Field. Javier Assad will start for the Cubs and McCade Brown goes for Colorado. Game time is 7:10 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.
