Heyward homer in 11th wins it for Chicago Cubs
MILWAUKEE — There seems to be a little confusion about what time of year we're in around these parts.
“It's not August yet,” said Jason Heyward, who hit a one-out solo homer in the top of the 11th inning Saturday night to give the Cubs a 2-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park.
The game was played before a season-high crowd of 44,709 at Miller Park, and it seemed most of the fans were cheering for the visitors.
The victory put the Cubs (55-48) 1½ games ahead of the second-place Brewers (55-51) in the National League Central.
The energy in the park was electric for a second straight night, and Cubs manager Joe Maddon trotted out one of his neologisms to help define the calendar.
“It's 'Jaugust,' I've told you that,” he said, as he combined “July” and “August” for the second time in a few days. “It's already here. And there's no getting around it. I love it. I absolutely love it. I think our players do. It's great. The fans were absolutely energized tonight. It's good stuff. And of course it's better when you win. But we lost a tough one last night (also a 2-1 game). It's just a really high-energy well-played two games.”
Heyward, who made a pair of spectacular catches in Friday night's loss, cracked his eighth homer of the year, a shot to right-center off Jared Hughes. That surpasses by 1 Heyward's home-run total of last year. He raised his arm and showed some emotion while running between first and second bases.
“Have fun, have fun,” he said. “It's good baseball being played. Can't ask for anything more than that.”
There are still some things for the Cubs' offense to work out. They managed only 6 hits in 11 innings and struck out 17 times. They also struck out 17 times in a game against the White Sox last week.
“We have to be more disciplined at the plate, not help pitchers out so much,” Maddon said. “You've got to force them to get us out in the strike zone more. We're not forcing them into the zone. We're permitting them to go outside the zone to get us out. We have to stop doing that.”
Reason for encouragement came from starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks, who looked appreciably better than his start last week against the Sox, when he went 4⅓ innings. Against the Brewers, he worked 5, giving up 6 hits and 1 run. The bullpen then allowed only 1 more hit the rest of the way.
The velocity on Hendricks' fastball ticked up to the mid- to high-80s (mph), creating a bigger disparity between the fastball and changeup.
And like the rest of the team, he liked the energy at Miller Park.
“I wasn't really expecting it to feel quite like this,” he said. “But it's good for us. You can see the at-bats we're putting together. They (the Brewers) are playing good baseball, really good baseball, making good pitches, playing good defense, putting together good ABs themselves, too. It was a good test for us.”