One thing about these Cubs that should help them out next week, presuming the Wild Card Series is held at Wrigley Field: The team’s bats have come alive. In four games this homestand, the Cubs have scored
34 runs, 12 of them on a gorgeous late September Friday in crushing the Cardinals 12-1.
In so doing they reduced their magic number to clinch home field to 1. There are five possible results remaining between Cubs and Padres games — five chances to have one Cubs win or one Padres loss. It’s not clinched yet but I am feeling pretty confident after this game.
Let’s begin at the beginning. Colin Rea had a 1-2-3 first and the second Cubs batter of the game, Nico Hoerner, smashed a home run off Miles Mikolas [VIDEO].
Rea continued to mow down Cardinals, striking out four over the first four innings and then the Cubs used the long ball again in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Kyle Tucker singled. If you were worried about him running the bases coming back from his calf injury, Pete Crow-Armstrong took care of that with his 30th home run of the season [VIDEO].
PCA joined the 30-30 club with that blast, joining his 35 stolen bases. He’s just the second Cub to accomplish this feat, after Sammy Sosa, who did it in 1993 and 1995. Here’s more on PCA and 30-30:
Rea struck out even more Cardinals in the fifth — he had seven after that inning. Michael Busch made it 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth with his 32nd homer [VIDEO].
That made three Cubs homers off Mikolas to add to the six they hit off him in July — nine off him this season. He allowed 19 to all the other teams combined.
Rea started to get hit hard in the sixth, with a couple of solidly-hit outs followed by a walk and a single off Dansby Swanson’s glove. Caleb Thielbar relieved Rea and issued a walk to load the bases, but then struck out Nolan Arenado to end the inning.
Thielbar allowed a leadoff double to Nolan Gorman in the seventh and was relieved by Andrew Kittredge, who allowed a pair of singles that scored what turned out to be the Cardinals’ only run. They actually had the tying run at the plate when Kittredge struck out Victor Scott II to end the inning.
Then the Cubs had some fun in the bottom of the seventh. Swanson led off with a walk and stole second, his 19th.
A triple by Matt Shaw made it 5-1 Cubs [VIDEO].
Busch followed with an RBI double [VIDEO].
Hoerner hit an infield single with Busch stopping at third, where he scored on this single by Ian Happ [VIDEO].
A walk drawn by Tucker loaded the bases, and again Tucker did not have to run hard, because Seiya Suzuki un-loaded the bases with a grand slam, his 30th home run [VIDEO].
With PCA and Suzuki both hitting the 30-homer mark Friday, joining Busch, here’s a fun fact from BCB’s JohnW53:
With PCA and Suzuki both hitting their 30th home runs, 2025 is the second season in which the Cubs have had more than two players with at least 30.
In 2004, Moises Alou hit 39; Aramis Ramirez, 36; Sammy Sosa, 35; and Derrek Lee, 32.
The Cubs have had a pair of 30-homer sluggers in 14 seasons, most recently 2019, when Kyle Schwarber hit 39 and Kris Bryant, 31.
Daniel Palencia threw the eighth — not because the score was in any real jeopardy at 11-1, but because he needed the work. He threw a 1-2-3 inning with no issues, recording one strikeout and hitting 100 miles per hour multiple times. I would expect him to get an inning Sunday, then be ready for Tuesday’s Wild Card opener vs. the Padres.
The Cubs added one more run in the eighth. Moisés Ballesteros batted for Busch and singled. He advanced to third on a ground out and scored on this single by Kevin Alcántara (who had replaced Happ in left) [VIDEO].
That was Alcántara’s first career RBI, so congrats to him for that.
As was the case with Palencia, Brad Keller threw the ninth just to get some work in, and I would also expect him to throw on Sunday. He struck out a pair and wrapped the game with this popup [VIDEO].
Back to Rea for a moment — he threw another great game after his excellent outing in Cincinnati last week. He’ll be a really useful weapon out of the pen against San Diego. From John:
In his last four games — one in relief, then three starts — Colin Rea has walked one batter and struck out 29 while pitching 23.1 innings.
There have been only 11 four-game spans since 1901 in which a Cub had zero or one walk and chalked up more than 29 strikeouts. They were achieved by five different pitchers.
Ferguson Jenkins had 37 twice, both in 1971. Yu Darvish had spans of 36, 35 and 34, all in 2019. Rick Sutcliffe had 34, in 1984. Jon Lieber and Jose Quintana had 33, in 1999 and 2019, respectively. Darvish had 32 and 30, both in 2019, and Lieber had 31 in 1999.
And it’s really nice to see Cubs bats come alive, particularly PCA and Suzuki. That bodes well for the postseason, I think.
So the Cubs are now thisclose to having home field for their Wild Card Series against the Padres starting Tuesday. If the Padres lose to the Diamondbacks tonight, that’s it, or if not, then the Cubs can take care of it Saturday afternoon against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field. Jameson Taillon will start for the Cubs and Matthew Liberatore goes for St. Louis. Game time is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.
