Cubs crush Mariners 12-1 at rainy Wrigley
Of the 21,000 regular-season games the Chicago Cubs have played since 1876, Friday's 12-1 interleague victory over the Seattle Mariners at Wrigley Field qualifies as one of the more impressive.
The struggling Cubs offense erupted for its fourth-highest run total this season on 14 hits, highlighted by a 2-run single from Chris Coghlan, a 2-run home run by Jason Heyward and a 3-run double by Anthony Rizzo.
Kris Bryant went 3-for-3 with 2 walks, David Ross finished 2-for-3 with a home run, Javier Baez had 3 hits in 5 at-bats and Ben Zobrist was 2-for-3 with a double and 2 runs.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon said he liked the hitting performances up and down the lineup.
“Zobrist is starting to show line drives,” Maddon said. “I loved the line drive down the left-field line left-handed. Rizz did the same thing. KB had a really good day at the plate.
“Just a really well-played game. We pitched well, we played well and we did everything well. After a very hard-fought series with the White Sox, it's nice to play a game like that.”
Cubs starting pitcher Jon Lester was his cagey self while improving to 11-4. The left-hander stranded four Mariners in scoring position in the first five innings. The veteran held Seattle scoreless on 4 hits over 6 innings, walked two and struck out seven to help the Cubs win their third straight game and their major league-best 62nd overall.
“I felt a lot better than I have here recently,” said Lester, whose 11th win matched his total from last season. “There was still, two pointless, useless walks in there. Still trying to clean that up for whatever reason, but at the end of the day we win and that's what you want to do. The guys swung the bats really well.”
With the Cubs leading 11-0 in the seventh inning, the game was interrupted by a rain delay that lasted an hour and eleven minutes. Still, the home dugout had little to complain about.
“These days are great,” Zobrist said. “It's a mental breather for everybody. When you get up early in a game like that, you allow the pitcher to have some breathing room and Jon did a great job settling in after the first couple innings there and never gave up anything. I think all across the board, as a team, it's a real feel-good win.”
The Cubs jumped to a 3-0 lead in the second inning against Seattle right-handed pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma, who entered with an 11-6 record and 3.96 earned-run average. Coghlan's two-out single was the key blow.
The Cubs made it a 5-0 lead an inning later when Heyward belted a home run to the front row of the right-field bleachers into a wind blowing in from right field at 10 mph.
Iwakuma was pulled after allowing 5 earned runs, a season high, in 3 innings, his shortest appearance of the season.
Rizzo delivered the clutch hit in a 6-run sixth inning. Choking up on the bat on a 3-2 count, he skipped a double the opposite way down the left-field line to beat the shift. Lester, Coghlan and Bryant all scored on the play to give the Cubs a 9-0 lead.