Personally, I would not recommend winning games this way on a regular basis.
But the Cubs seem to have found the knack for taking leads, giving them up, coming from behind and winning in a walk-off. They did it again Tuesday night at Wrigley Field — including a long rain delay — defeating the White Sox 4-3, this time on an Alex Bregman single in the ninth inning.
Pete Crow-Armstrong began the festivities with another leadoff home run. Unlike Monday’s first-pitch blast, this one took him four pitches
[VIDEO].
That was PCA’s sixth leadoff homer of the season and 31st of the year, which ties his career high, set last year.
More from BCB’s JohnW53:
Pete Crow-Armstrong has homered for the Cubs’ first hit in three straight games: in the third inning on Sunday, then leading off Monday and Tuesday.
The Cubs’ first hit has been a homer in 21 games, exactly one of every six.
Crow-Armstrong has done it seven times; Seiya Suzuki, four times; Alex Bregman, Ian Happ and Dansby Swanson, twice; and Michael Busch, Michael Conforto, Nico Hoerner and Matt Shaw, once. Six of PCA’s and Hoerner’s led off games.
Two outs later, Michael Busch went deep [VIDEO].
The White Sox used left-handed opener Bryan Hudson in the first inning to counter the lefty hitters at the top of the Cubs lineup. Hudson retired all three right-handed hitters he faced (Seiya Suzuki, Bregman and Nico Hoerner) and the two lefties homered off him. Go figure.
Kevin Gausman struggled through the early innings. He walked the first two Sox he faced, but got out of the inning with a double play. Then he allowed three hits resulting in a run after retiring the first two Sox hitters in the second, a monster home run to Munetaka Murakami in the third that hit the left-field video board, and another run in the fourth on a pair of doubles that gave the Sox the lead. During that inning Craig Counsell and trainer Nick Frangella visited Gausman and after quite a delay, he remained in the game. Gausman came out for the fifth, allowed a one-out single, then got the trainer visit again and left the game [VIDEO].
Here’s why:
Gausman’s outing was obviously not good, and a cramp on your non-pitching hand is a weird way to leave a ballgame. Hopefully, things will go better next time. Here’s Gausman explaining what happened [VIDEO].
The Cubs had two runners on leading off the second on singles by Pedro Ramirez and Ian Happ, but didn’t score, and after Happ’s single, Sox bulk guy Erick Fedde retired 13 of the next 14 Cubs in order, so they trailed 3-2 at the end of the fifth.
Meanwhile, Javier Assad had relieved Gausman and got out of the fifth inning with a double play. Then Assad threw two more scoreless innings and struck out Andrew Benintendi leading off the eighth. I don’t know what more Assad has to do to convince Counsell and the brass to put him back in the rotation. Three innings, two hits, no runs, a pair of strikeouts, 40 pitches, 28 strikes. In nine games since the beginning of July: 1.71 ERA, 1.137 WHIP in 31.2 innings. To quote the old Kyle Hendricks mantra: “All he does is get guys out.”
The Cubs tied the game in the bottom of the seventh. Miguel Amaya led off with a walk and Kevin Alcántara ran for him. Michael Conforto also walked, putting the tying run in scoring position. But the next two Cubs, PCA and Suzuki, struck out. (Suzuki didn’t have a good game on his birthday, going 0-for-5 with three K’s.)
Bregman redeemed the rally by singling in Alcántara to make it 3-3 [VIDEO].
After Bregman’s hit, it looked like Busch might have had a hit to give the Cubs the lead, but give a hat tip to Chase Meidroth for making this play [VIDEO].
After Assad had struck out Benintendi to begin the eighth, Counsell summoned Caleb Thielbar, who’s not had a good year. But Thielbar was effective on this night, allowing a two-out single but then getting Chase Meidroth to ground out to end the inning.
It wasn’t raining yet but the Cubs, knowing rain was imminent, had the tarp pulled right after that [VIDEO].
It rained hard for a while, then moderately for quite some time, and some fans provided some entertainment during the delay:
After nearly 90 minutes, the game resumed. The Cubs went out 1-2-3 in the bottom of the eighth and Jacob Webb, who has been outstanding for the last two months, entered to throw the ninth. He allowed a two-out walk but got out of the inning with a ground ball to Busch.
Carson Kelly, who had entered the game in the eighth, led off the bottom of the ninth with a double. Then Michael Conforto was called out on strikes. This time, unlike Monday, the Sox intentionally passed PCA to put runners on first and second. Suzuki popped up in foul territory to Murakami, who made a nice sliding catch [VIDEO].
That brought up Bregman. He hit Trevor Richards’ first pitch for the game-winner [VIDEO].
That was the Cubs’ 13th walk-off win this year. More from John:
The Cubs had consecutive walk-offs once this season before Monday and Tuesday. They won three straight vs. the Reds on May 4-6, the last two in 10 innings.
The Cubs now have 13 walk-off wins. Going into yesterday, no other team had more than nine.
The 13 walk-offs tie them with 1932 and 2015 for their second most in a season by the Cubs. They had 14 in 1930.
The MLB record for walk-off wins in a season is 17, set by the Pirates in 1959 and tied by them in 1977. Just in case, you know.
Here’s Bregman on the walk-off hit [VIDEO].
And here are Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].
This team has shown resilience all year — after the rough losses over the weekend, to have two walk-offs in a row like this against a tenacious White Sox team is a really good result. As I mentioned at the top of this recap — this is not the recommended way to win games, but it’s certainly exciting and entertaining. The Cubs have again reached their season high at 21 games over .500 and since June 10 are 40-19, half a game behind the Red Sox for the best record in MLB over that span.
The Brewers destroyed the Mariners 22-0 Tuesday, matching the biggest shutout in MLB history, though the last nine runs were scored off a position player. So the Cubs continue to trail them by 4.5 games in the NL Central.
The Cubs will go for the series sweep Wednesday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Clay Holmes will start for the Cubs and once again, the Sox will use a left-handed opener, this time Sean Newcomb. José Urquidy will likely be the “bulk guy” after Newcomb. Game time is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network (and CHSN and WCIU-Ch. 26 with the Sox announcers).
