Comeback Cubs win a wild one on the South Side
Wednesday night brought about a roller coaster of emotions for Cubs fans.
The Cubs entered the night on a 4-game winning streak at a time where they need to keep piling up victories ahead of the trade deadline.
But faced with a 7-2 deficit while one of the team’s best pitchers (Marcus Stroman) exited in the 4th inning, things looked bleak for the Cubs.
Until a crazy inning changed the course of the game and the Cubs showed off their resiliency once again en route to a 10-7 victory.
“Crazy, crazy game,” Stroman said. “Definitely awesome to come out with a W in that one.”
The White Sox jumped out to an early 2-0 lead after the 1st inning but the Cubs rallied back immediately as the bottom of the order tallied a pair of runs.
The White Sox answered with a run in the bottom of the 2nd off Stroman and then the wheels fell off in the 4th with a 4-spot as the South Siders took a 7-2 lead.
The Cubs didn’t wait long to answer.
The top of the 5th inning looked like this:
—Mike Tauchman led off with an infield single
—Nico Hoerner was hit with a pitch
—Ian Happ singled home Tauchman
—Cody Bellinger flied out
—Seiya Suzuki walked
—Dansby Swanson struck out
—Christopher Morel singled home a pair of runs
TFW when you help get your team right back in the game pic.twitter.com/k5Jw1n03WX
— Tony Andracki (@TonyAndracki23) July 27, 2023
—Morel then stole second
—Miles Mastrobuoni reached on a dropped third strike as Suzuki scored
—Yan Gomes was hit with a pitch
—Tauchman walked to force in a run
—Hoerner walked to force in a run
—Happ flied out to right
The end result was 6 runs on only 3 hits as the Cubs took advantage of every opportunity. Watch the whole rally here:
“I think it’s just one at-bat to the next and we had a couple bounces go our way, a couple walks, things like that,” Hoerner said. “That’s all you can do. We’ve been pretty thorough in not giving away at-bats and that just gives you the chance for those things to happen.”
In the 8th, the Cubs added insurance with back-to-back homers from Happ and Bellinger.
Meanwhile, after Stroman was tagged for 7 runs on 9 hits and 2 walks in 3.1 innings, the Cubs bullpen was spotless on the evening.
Javier Assad, Julian Merryweather, Mark Leiter Jr. and Adbert Alzolay combined to throw 5.2 shutout innings to close it out and put the finishing touches on the Cubs’ quick sweep of the White Sox.
“It’s hard to measure these things in baseball, but just felt like a pretty good amount of willpower just to make that [comeback] happen,” Hoerner said. “Two-game series here but it felt like more than that just with the amount of big moments and excitement that we had and a great atmosphere. Just really high-level, fun baseball.”
The Cubs have now won 5 in a row and boast a 50-51 record on the season. They’ll head to St. Louis for a crucial 4-game set beginning Thursday night with the trade deadline only a few days away.
“We believe in this clubhouse for sure,” Bellinger said. “A lot of winners in this clubhouse. We’re playing good baseball and we’re excited to keep it going and continue playing our game.”