Miles: Cubs triumph in wild night at Wrigley
Just another night of intrigue, drama, spectacular fielding and walk-off wonder at Wrigley Field.
That's how it all went down Wednesday night as the Cubs somehow sifted through all of it to emerge with a 3-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.
Miguel Montero, who was mad at himself over a couple of wild pitches that cost the Cubs a 2-1 lead in the ninth, dashed around the bases after hitting a game-winning leadoff homer in the bottom of the 10th to give the Cubs their sixth win in a row and 12th in 13 games.
With a record of 64-48, the Cubs are within 1½ games of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the top wild-card spot in the National League.
"Right now, the feeling in the clubhouse is that we're pretty unbeatable," said Montero, who gave the Cubs their major-league-leading 11th walk-off win.
It's that all's-well-that-ends-well approach that seems to be carrying the Cubs even past some of their own mistakes, such as closer Hector Rondon uncorking a wild pitch to allow the tying run to score.
This one started as a nice pitching duel between the Cubs' Jason Hammel and former Cubs starter Matt Garza. Ryan Braun homered in the first to give Milwaukee a 1-0 lead before Kris Bryant's 16th homer in the second tied it.
The intrigue and spectacular fielding happened in the top of the sixth, a half-inning after the Cubs took a 2-1 lead.
Hammel struck out Shane Peterson (for Hammel's 1,000th career strikeout) and gave up a single to Jonathan Lucroy to start the inning. Braun came up and lifted a foul pop near the first-base stands.
Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo moved over but never gave up. He first climbed the tarp and then scaled the wall. Rizzo made the catch and landed in the stands, holding on to the ball. (Lucroy advanced to second.)
At first, umpires ruled it no catch, but at the urging of Maddon, they conferred and reversed the call, giving Rizzo one of the more spectacular putouts of the season.
"It's just one of those ones where you put your head down at first, run around and come up with the catch," Rizzo said. "I really don't remember any of it. It all kind of just slowed down at the moment. Once I made the catch, everything sped up real fast."
Then the curious happened. Maddon pulled Hammel after just 65 pitches in favor of left-hander Clayton Richard.
In Hammel's previous start, Maddon yanked him after 4-plus innings. Hammel was none too pleased then, and he and the manager had a chat.
He was tight-lipped after Wednesday's game, answering "obviously" to questions about being either upset or surprised to be taken out.
Maddon again declared that starting pitching isn't a "100-pitch" exercise and that he had his reasons for taking Hammel out while expected the pitcher to be peeved.
"Lind is coming up," Maddon said, referring to Adam Lind, the batter after Braun. "Didn't like it. Don't want to walk him to get to the next guy (Khris Davis), who's been hot."
Richard retired Davis on a fly to deep center, even though Maddon was looking for a groundball. Then there was the matter of Hammel's feelings.
"I was certain he was going to be upset," Maddon said. "I expect him to be upset. I'm happy that he's going to be upset because he's such a competitor and because he's such an outstanding pitcher. But from my perspective, from where I'm sitting, it's not about being nice. It's about trying to do the right thing at the right moment."