It’s September. Temperatures at Wrigley Field Friday felt autumn-like, in the mid 60s, and the wind was blowing out strongly, mostly to right field.
The Cubs took advantage of that by hitting four balls into the bleachers. Dansby Swanson, Reese McGuire, Nico Hoerner and Ian Happ all went deep and the Cubs took care of business with an 11-5 win over the visiting Nationals.
The Cubs put five on the board in the first inning, a welcome sight after recent offensive struggles.
Happ walked with one out and
went to third on a single by Seiya Suzuki. Happ scored on this sac fly by Pete Crow-Armstrong [VIDEO].
Hoerner followed with a bloop double that scored Suzuki [VIDEO].
That made it 2-0… but only for a moment, as Swanson followed with this three-run homer [VIDEO].
That ball was crushed! [VIDEO]
About the five-run first, from BCB’s JohnW53:
The Cubs’ five-run inning to begin the game was their 12th of the season with five runs but their first in 51 games, since the third inning against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field on July 6. They had one six-run inning since then, last Saturday at Colorado.
It was their first five-run first inning of 2025.
In the bottom of the second, Reese McGuire, who might have been playing exactly because of the wind blowing out to right, took advantage with this home run [VIDEO].
Javier Assad breezed through the first three innings, allowing just one baserunner (a hit batter in the second). He might have gotten out of the fourth without incident, except PCA lost this fly ball in the sun [VIDEO].
Hey, it happens. Unfortunately, that was followed by a two-run homer from Luis Garcia Jr., cutting the Cubs lead to 6-2.
They got those runs back in the bottom of the inning. With one out, Happ walked for the second time. Suzuki struck out, but a single by PCA and walk from Hoerner loaded the bases.
Willi Castro doubled in a pair [VIDEO].
That made it 8-2 Cubs. Assad ran out of gas in the sixth, allowing a single and walk with one out, and was replaced by Caleb Thielbar. Thielbar’s been so good this year, but he allowed a long triple to center field by Daylen Lile (pretty good looking young player, too), which cut the Cubs’ lead to 8-4. A sacrifice fly made it a bit too close at 8-5, but the Cubs were about to take care of that in the bottom of the sixth.
Happ led off with a walk, his third of the game. More on that from John:
This was Ian Happ’s third game of the season with three walks. Seiya Suzuki and Kyle Tucker each have one. Happ’s career total of 10 makes him the 24th Cub to reach double digits in such games since 1901. Ryne Sandberg also had 10; Frank Chance, Don Kessinger and Kosuke Fukudome each had 11. Stan Hack leads by far with 33, five more than Mark Grace and Jimmy Sheckard. Ron Santo had 24; Johnny Evers and Sammy Sosa, 23.
Happ advanced to second on a wild pitch, went to third on a fly to center by Suzuki, and scored on PCA’s second sac fly of the afternoon [VIDEO].
Nico followed with his first Wrigley home run of 2025 [VIDEO].
Nico’s sixth of the year made it 10-5 Cubs. Andrew Kittredge followed with a scoreless seventh, and Taylor Rogers had a scoreless eighth. After that Happ completed the scoring with his 20th of the year [VIDEO].
Happ’s home run helped the team tie a franchise record. From John:
Happ’s homer was his 20th, making him the sixth Cub this season to reach 20. That matches the franchise record, set in 2017 and tied in 2019 and 2023.
2017: Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Willson Contreras, Ian Happ, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber
2019: Jason Heyward instead of Happ, five others the same
2023: Cody Bellinger, Happ, Christopher Morel, Seiya Suzuki, Dansby Swanson, Patrick Wisdom
Porter Hodge was assigned to finish things up, and he did so 1-2-3, wrapping up the game with this strikeout [VIDEO].
This was a satisfying win, with good pitching, defense and a bunch of long balls, in addition to a lot of walks — eight in all drawn by the Cubs, a good way to begin this series. Last game note from John:
The Cubs scored at least 10 runs in 16 of their first 90 games. Today was just the fourth time in their last 51.
Perhaps this will become more of a thing as we head down the stretch.
Here’s Nico after the game about his home run [VIDEO].
The Cubs’ magic number to clinch a postseason spot dropped to 13 with the win, and to clinch the top postseason spot, it’s now 18, with other games to follow this evening that could possibly drop those numbers further.
The Cubs will go for the series win Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Matthew Boyd will start for the Cubs and Brad Lord goes for the Nats. Game time is again 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage returns to Marquee Sports Network.
