No, that headline is not wrong. Anthony Rizzo was at Wrigley Field Saturday, along with many of his 2016 World Series champion teammates, to dedicate Champions Gate at Gallagher Way (and BCB’s Sara Sanchez will have a full write-up tomorrow) and to be celebrated before Saturday’s game, which the Cubs won 6-2 over the Twins.
Then he went and sat in the right-field bleachers and for the second time (also last September), he got a home run ball hit right to him.
We can start there, since that happened
in the bottom of the first inning after Matthew Boyd had a 1-2-3 top of the first. Pete Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki were routine outs.
Then Busch launched one [VIDEO].
And there was Busch’s home run, right in Rizzo’s hand… while he was holding his child in the other, cheered on by Ben Zobrist sitting right next to him.
Now what are the odds? That Rizzo would be right in that home run’s path, just as he was last year for Moisés Ballesteros’ first MLB homer, which Rizzo did NOT catch. Marquee’s Elise Menaker caught up with Rizzo a bit later [VIDEO].
That homer was matched by Minnesota’s Kody Clemens in the second for a 1-1 tie. Roger Clemens’ son has actually become a pretty productive MLB player as the Twins’ more-or-less regular second baseman.
The Cubs got the lead back in the second. With one out, Nico Hoerner singled and went to second on a walk drawn by Pedro Ramirez — on an ABS challenge [VIDEO].
Nice work there by Ramirez. Dansby Swanson hit into a force play, with Nico taking third.
Then Miguel Amaya doubled, scoring both runners to give the Cubs a 3-1 lead [VIDEO].
The Cubs extended their lead to 5-1 in the third. Suzuki led off with a walk and two outs later, Ian Happ also walked. Hoerner’s second single of the game scored Suzuki [VIDEO].
Happ took third on that hit and scored on this automatic double into the stands by Ramirez [VIDEO].
After that, things got quiet for a few innings. Matthew Boyd completed six innings, allowing just two hits besides Clemens’ home run. He struck out four [VIDEO].
Here’s more on Boyd’s outing [VIDEO].
Boyd had some help from his defense. Happ made this nice sliding catch in the fourth [VIDEO].
Busch decided to emulate Rizzo with this tarp catch in the fifth [VIDEO].
And then the Cubs turned this nice double play to end the sixth [VIDEO].
Caleb Thielbar threw the seventh and served up another home run ball to Clemens to make it 5-2.
The Cubs got that run right back in the bottom of the inning. Busch led off with a walk. Two outs later he went to second on Nico’s fourth hit of the afternoon.
Ramirez drove in Busch with his second hit to make it 6-2 [VIDEO].
Trent Thornton threw a scoreless eighth on just 10 pitches. The Cubs didn’t score in the bottom of the eighth, so Jacob Webb entered to protect a four-run lead.
That started to look a bit shaky when the first two Twins singled.
Then Brooks Lee came to bat and… well, watch [VIDEO].
What appears to have happened there is that the runners held up to see if PCA would catch the ball. He’s about the only center fielder who could do that — almost anywhere else that falls for an RBI single. But when PCA blocked the ball and threw in, the Twins runners appeared to be confused and ran themselves into that 8-2-4-5-3 double play, one of the wildest ones you will ever see. Alert Cubs defense is what turned that. A bit faster and it might have even been a triple play.
So instead of a run in, two runners on and nobody out, there’s a runner on second and two out and Webb took care of business to end the game [VIDEO].
Here’s Busch on his homer to Rizzo [VIDEO].
Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].
Here’s more on Nico’s four-hit afternoon from BCB’s JohnW53:
Last night and today are the fourth time this season that Nico Hoerner has made a total of at least five hits in back-to-back games. The others were April 7-8 (five), April 14-15 (five) and April 15-17 (six). Hoerner played 75 games after April 17 and before last night.
…..
This was Hoerner’s 800th game as a Cub. If was his fifth game with four hits, but the first in which he was 4 for 4. He was 4 for 5 three times in 2023 and then on April 16, 2023.
Pete Crow-Armstrong was the only previous Cub with four hits in a game this season. He did it three times between May 30 and June 15, going 4 for 5 in the first two and 4 for 4 in the third.
One more note: After the game the Cubs announced they had acquired Aaron Civale from the A’s for minor league right-hander Aiden Moffett. The move makes the 40-man roster full. Civale had a 5.42 ERA in 16 games (15 starts) for the A’s and honestly I have no idea what the Cubs are going to do with him. No 26-man roster move has been announced yet.
The Phillies defeated the Mets today so the Cubs remain half a game ahead of them for the top wild card spot.
And the Brewers withstood a ninth-inning Marlins rally to beat them 8-6, so the Cubs remain six games out of first place in the NL Central.
The Cubs go for the series win Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Shōta Imanaga will start for the Cubs and Zebby Matthews goes for the Twins. Game time is again 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.
