Chicago Cubs slug it out in 8-6 win over Nationals
It may have been just a cameo appearance, a tease.
Summertime Wrigley Field made its first appearance of the baseball season Friday, and the Chicago Cubs celebrated like it was a solstice festival.
Their batters hit 4 home runs, 2 by firecracker-hot Ben Zobrist, and the bullpen held on for an 8-6 victory over the Washington Nationals.
The victory was the Cubs' fifth in a row, and it moved them to 22-6 for the season, the best start by a National League team since the Los Angeles Dodgers went 22-6 to open the 1977 season on their way to a World Series appearance. No NL team has started better than 22-6 through 28 games since the Brooklyn Dodgers went 24-4 in 1955 to start a world-championship season.
Wrigley Field has given hitters the cold shoulder so far this season. Friday marked the first time the wind had blown out in 2016, and it did so out of the southwest at 9 mph at game time, when it was 73 degrees.
Zobrist, who homered Thursday night at Wrigley and the previous day at Pittsburgh, seemed disbelieving of the friendly conditions.
“Right before the game, somebody said something about, 'The wind's blowing out,' and everybody was kind of like, 'Yeah, right,' because we didn't go out for BP (batting practice) this morning, which is odd,” he said. “But I think once we got out there and saw that it was actually blowing out a little bit, our lineup was finally kind of licking its chops.”
Cubs manager Joe Maddon marveled at how capriciously his ballpark plays.
“Just two different ballparks; it's incredible how we play in two different ballparks,” Maddon said. “I think of the Texas League immediately. When you play in Midland and El Paso, it's one way to play baseball. Then you go to San Antonio, Beaumont, Shreveport, Little Rock, Tulsa, it's an entirely different game. It's incredible how different the game is.”
A big ol' Texan named John Lackey took the mound for the Cubs and gave up single runs in each of the first two innings, including a solo homer by Anthony Rendon in the first.
Lackey (4-1) never has been known to back down, and he stayed with it, lasting 7 innings and giving up 6 hits and 2 runs while walking one and striking out 11 and surpassing 2,000 strikeouts for his career.
“We're going to play a little country hardball every now and then and figure it out,” he said.
Tommy La Stella got the Cubs' home run parade started in the third, with his 2-run blast off Nats starter Max Scherzer tying the game.
Anthony Rizzo and Zobrist went back to back in the third. Rizzo's home run, a high drive down the right-field line, went toward the foul pole and appeared to hit one of the Cubs' Hall of Fame flags flying atop the pole. First-base umpire Clint Fagan emphatically ruled home run right away, and it was upheld on replay review.
Rizzo said there was doubt in his mind.
“Right off the bat, you just never know,” he said. “It felt good. I saw it fair. It's a tough one to overturn, so I'm really grateful that the umpire called it initially fair.”
On days like this, no leads are safe, but Zobrist did what he could to break the game open with his 3-run homer in the fifth, a blast to right.
After Lackey left, relievers Clayton Richard and Justin Grimm combined to give up 4 runs, all coming in the eighth. Hector Rondon came on in the ninth to nail down his fifth save.
Zobrist had played his entire in the American League, so his chances to hit in Wrigley Field were limited. His first career homer at the Friendly Confines came Thursday, and now he has 3 in two days.
“It's awesome,” he said. “It's exciting to finally play here with the wind blowing out a little bit today. It was great. The crowd is just electric, and it's fun. Anytime you start feeling good at the plate, it makes the game a lot more fun, especially with a nice warm day, the wind blowing out. Probably a week ago, both of those balls I hit today would have been caught. Fortunately for me today, they were blown out a little bit.
“Yeah, just feeling good right now, and I think we're playing great baseball.”
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