Mills celebrates in style while Cubs pull notch weird walk-off win
He grew up in Tennessee, but Cubs pitcher Alec Mills celebrated his no-hitter Chicago-style.
"Getting off the bus from Milwaukee, my wife and kid were out there, so that was cool," Mills said Tuesday. "She ordered Pequod's. I hadn't tried it yet. It was really good. I think it might be my favorite pizza I've tried in the city so far. So that was a cool little Chicago way to celebrate."
Pequod's, with locations in West Lincoln Park and Morton Grove, is billed as deep dish pizza with caramelized crust. Mills is now known as the 12th Cubs pitcher to throw a no-hitter. But Mills himself said, you're only as good as your next start.
That goes for the team as well. The Cubs had Yu Darvish on the mound Tuesday against Cleveland. For most of this season, that has meant an automatic victory.
For the second-straight outing, Darvish was touched for multiple runs. He was still on target for the win until Jeremy Jeffress gave up a tying 2-run homer to Francisco Lindor with one out in the ninth.
The Cubs won 6-5 in the bottom of the ninth when Cameron Maybin was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Kris Bryant walked, Anthony Rizzo singled and Willson Contreras was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Darvish did record his ninth consecutive quality start. He went 7 innings, giving up 3 runs, 9 hits and striking out seven.
The Cubs went ahead 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Contreras after a walk to Bryant and single from Rizzo put runners on the corners.
Baez added an insurance run in the eighth when he was hit by a pitch, stole second and came all the way around to score when the throw to second went into center field.
Darvish had an impressive run of seven victories in seven consecutive starts, while never allowing more than 1 earned run. The streak ended last week when Darvish gave up 3 runs in the first inning to Cincinnati and lost 3-0.
This one was a little different. After Baez staked the Cubs to a 1-0 lead with his seventh home run of the season, the Indians scored twice in the third inning. Lindor had 2 early RBI, in addition to his late 2-run homer.
The Cubs tied it in the bottom of the fifth when they got four straight hits at the top of the order, including RBI by Bryant and Rizzo.
Mills' next start is expected to be Saturday against the Twins. He lost track of how many text messages were received after Sunday's no-hitter, but at one point the count was 320.
"Yesterday during (son) Carter's nap, I tried to take the time to get back to everybody, so that took a while," Mills said. "But I'm thankful for everybody reaching out and congratulating me. I'm lucky to have that many people that want to do that. I'll always try to take the time to (answer).
"Yesterday I sat down on the couch and was just like, 'What did I just do?' So I think it's starting to settle in a little bit. You're only as good as the next time you pitch, so I think I need to go out there and kind of just leapfrog off of that and keep pitching like I know how."
Mills' no-hitter came in his 15th major league start, the fewest since San Francisco's Chris Heston tossed one in his 12th career start in 2015. Burt Hooton of the Cubs threw a no-hitter in his fourth start in 1972.
Twitter: @McGrawDHBulls