Yu Darvish takes no-hitter into the 7th as Cubs pick up another win
Another Cubs game, another quality start from their starter and another win.
The Cubs are making these types of wins commonplace. Yu Darvish was stellar on the mound for the Cubs, no-hitting the Brewers through 6.1 innings en route to a 4-2 Cubs win at Wrigley Field. Darvish finished with 11 strikeouts in the win.
“I thought he had really good command of his off-speed stuff tonight,” David Ross said. “The breaking ball was working, the slider, the cutter in on those lefties was going in deep and finishing with some splitties or fastballs late. Really kept them off balance.”
Darvish was dominant. He allowed just 3 baserunners in his first 6.1 innings of work, two walks and hitting Christian Yelich with a pitch in the first inning. He allowed his first hit, a solo home run to Justin Smoak on a 1-0 count. He struck out Omar Narváez and induced a flyout against Ben Gamel to finish the inning.
“I knew [about the no-hitter], but at the same time I know I’m not going 9 innings because of [my] pitch count,” Darvish said. “So, just, you know, I’m trying to keep the game close.”
He did just that.
Darvish struck out 8 Brewer hitters on his splitter, which confuses hitters because of its similar appearance to his cutter.
“Most of the time, when I hit more than 89, 90, 91, that’s a splitter that looks like a cutter, cutter action, but that’s a splitter,” Darvish said.
The Cubs raced out to an early lead. Leadoff hitter Nico Hoerner doubled on the first pitch he saw in the 1st inning, and two batters later scored on an RBI groundout from Javy Báez.
Kyle Schwarber doubled the Cubs lead in the 2nd inning, ripping an opposite field home run to left center field off Brewers’ lefty starter Brett Anderson. The Cubs hitters made Anderson, who pitched for the team in 2017, work, as he surrendered 5 hits and 2 walks on 87 pitches in 4.1 innings of work.
“Obviously faced him a couple of times in spring, maybe, and just know that he’s a guy that kinda wants to pound lefties in,” Schwarber said. “[I] just tried to make the adjustment there and maybe back off the plate a little bit and just try to get the barrel to it and was able to get the barrel to it and it just went to the opposite field and happy about the result there.”
The Brewers turned to Corbin Burnes out of the pen and the Cubs pounced on him in the 6th inning. Ian Happ ripped a double to the center field wall that scored Willson Contreras and David Bote followed with an RBI-single to score Happ.
Casey Sadler pitched a scoreless 8th inning.
The Brewers made it interesting in the 9th, as Justin Smoak hit a ground-rule double to score Avisaíl García and bring the tying run to the plate. But Rowan Wick picked up the save, getting Narváez to fly out.