After falling behind 5-0, Cubs rally and extend White Sox’ skid
The Cubs keep insisting they're going to start hitting one of these days.
First, they stopped pitching.
Shota Imanaga was hit hard for the second straight start, giving up 5 runs in 4 ⅓ innings of work. But after falling behind 5-0, the Cubs' bats finally came alive and they rallied for a 7-6 victory Tuesday at Wrigley Field. The White Sox losing streak now sits at 12 in a row.
Ian Happ delivered the game-winner, a rocket 2-run double to right field in the bottom of the eighth off Jordan Leasure.
The Cubs originally tied the score with a pair of 2-run homers by Christopher Morel and Patrick Wisdom in the sixth. But Luis Robert Jr., activated off the injured list earlier in the day, blasted a long home run deep into the right-center field bleachers off Hayden Wesneski in the seventh to put the Sox ahead 6-5.
In the top of the ninth, Oscar Colas walked and Duke Ellis made his major-league debut as a pinch-runner. Ellis stole second easily, then was picked off second by Hector Neris, ending the Sox's final threat.
Only 1 of the 5 runs against Imanaga was earned, but he gave up a double off the wall to Korey Lee and a 2-run homer to Lenyn Sosa, his first of the year. So it's not like it was a fluke, either. Imanaga gave up 7 earned runs in his previous start at Milwaukee.
The 5-run fourth inning began with singles by Andrew Vaughn and Robert Jr. DeJong followed with a slow hopper to third. Morel was thinking 5-3 double play, but the ball bounced off his glove for an error as the first run scored.
This game drew a full house, but didn't feature the typical influx of fans from the South Side, for obvious reasons. The White Sox hadn't lost 11 in a row since they had a 15-game skid spanning the end of 1967 and start of '68. The last single-season streak of that length was in 1956; the last 12-game skid was in 1927.
Before the game, Cubs president of baseball operations Hoyer talked about his growing friendship with first-year White Sox general manager Chris Getz.
“I like Chris a lot. We live really close to each other in the suburbs and we've become friends,” Hoyer said. “It's a hard job to take over, to have to make really difficult trades, to have to effectively lose on purpose for a while in order to get better.
“But I respect the fact that he's going right at it. He's not cutting corners. I think they've got a lot of pitching in their minor league system now because of that.”
Getz' boldest move so far was trading former Cubs draft pick Dylan Cease to San Diego.
The Cubs might be looking for a bold move of their own before the trade deadline if their offense doesn't pick up the pace. Over the past month, the Cubs rank 29th in MLB in batting average, 27th in runs scored.
“I think we're constantly looking to improve our team and talking to people,” Hoyer said. “I believe in this group. We were sixth in baseball in run scoring (last season). This group is a better offensive team than we've shown.”
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