The Javy Baez Show: Cubs win 13-5
If the Cubs have been looking for someone to make things happen on offense, they need look no further than Javier Baez.
Baez makes things happen whether he's hitting home runs or striking out.
The Cubs' second baseman continued doing all that Wednesday night in a 13-5 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field. With the win, the Cubs moved back over .500 at 6-5.
One day after hitting a pair of homers, Baez launched a massive opposite-field 3-run shot to right-center in the bottom of the second inning, as the Cubs rallied from a 3-0 deficit. He added a blast to left field in the eighth.
"His whole game is spectacular," said Cubs manager Joe Maddon. "As he matures as a hitter, I have no idea what he's going to do because he is one of the more exciting players in the game right now."
Baez has been known to make regular strikeouts exciting enough as he often swings out of his shoes and lands on the ground.
It was a Baez strikeout that got another 4-run inning going in the sixth. He led off with one, but he reached first base on a dropped third strike as Pirates pitcher Tyler Glasnow uncorked a wild pitch.
Baez went to second on Jason Heyward's groundout to first before he stole third base with pinch hitter Tommy La Stella at bat. It was homeward bound for Baez when La Stella grounded to second baseman Josh Harrison, who was playing in. Baez slid home ahead of Harrison's errant throw. That enabled the Cubs to break a 4-4 tie, and they scored three more times in the inning.
Here's something else, and it may be right to Maddon's point about Baez maturing. He popped up to shortstop in the seventh, flipped his bat and didn't run the ball out. The next inning, he homered.
"You know what I really got out of today?" Baez asked. "You know what I learned? About how ugly I looked on that flyball. I tossed the bat really high, didn't run to first base. One of my teammates came up to me. He said it in a good way, and obviously you learn from it. Especially me, I don't take my AB before to the plate. After I hit that flyball and tossed the bat really high, I was kind of mad about it, not because of the flyball, just the way I looked, obviously for the kids and everybody that follows me. I learned that from today."
Jon Lester made his third start of the season for the Cubs, and he lasted 5 innings, giving up 7 hits and 4 runs. He threw 34 of his 96 pitches in the second, when the Pirates scored 3 runs, and after the half-inning, he came in for a few words with home-plate umpire Dan Bellino. It was more for clarity than anything else. Lester was not happy on a walk to Gregory Polanco that preceded a 3-run homer by Sean Rodriguez.
"Dan's great," Lester said. "I've had him a lot. And I know he's an umpire you can talk to. That's why I went directly to him. The big thing with him is that he knows when you're confronting him it's not an argument. I had some questions, and he answered a couple of them."
In the end, Lester and everybody else knew this night belonged to Baez.
"Javy's obviously feeling pretty comfortable out there right now," Lester said. "Four homers in two days is OK. Right? I'm glad he's on our side. A couple years ago, we were talking about this guy playing center field for us. Now he's kind of plugging in at all different positions and bringing a lot of excitement to the baseball game. It's pretty cool to watch. There's not a lot of things he can't do."
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