Of guts and grass: Cubs bats come alive to beat White Sox, but there’s more to the story
The Cubs flipped the switch on their slumping offense Friday, turning a 4-4 tie through six innings into a 10-5 win over the White Sox at sold-out Rate Field.
After going 1 for 34 with runners in scoring position over the previous five games, while scoring 2 runs or fewer each night, the Cubs piled up 14 hits on the South Side. Catcher Carson Kelly led the way with 3 hits and 4 RBI.
After the game, though, a couple of non-hitting heroes were hot topics of discussion. One was second baseman Nico Hoerner going parallel to the ground to make a diving snag and rob Munetaka Murakami of a basehit in the seventh inning.
“The play Nico made was unbelievable,” said Cubs reliever Trent Thornton, who was on the mound at the time. “My jaw was in the grass. That was just fun. The atmosphere was electric tonight.”
Then Cubs manager Craig Counsell basically rerouted his postgame news conference so he could heap praise on Thornton, who entered the game in the sixth inning with the score tied, runners on first and second, and nobody out. But he managed to escape the inning with no damage, and the Cubs took the lead for good in the top of the seventh.
“He's got guts,” Counsell said of Thornton. “There's another way to say that, but he's got a lot of guts.”
Thornton is a new face in the Cubs bullpen. He was called up from Iowa on May 7 and has thrown 5 scoreless innings in four appearances. Counsell suggested Thornton showed his fortitude during spring training, but that was news to the right-hander.
“I don't know, because I didn't pitch in the (spring) games,” Thornton said. “I just feel like being a competitor, you want the ball in your hands in big situations.”
Thornton has seven years of big-league experience, mostly with Toronto. Last year, he tore an Achilles tendon with Seattle, so being late to the Cubs bullpen was about injury recovery, as well as earning a spot.
“The recovery process with my Achilles was a roller coaster, for sure,” he said. “Finally getting another opportunity to be back up here, I'm trying to take the ball every time my name's called and give it my all.”
Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas and Jarred Kelenic hit home runs for the White Sox (22-22), who saw their five-game win streak come to an end, as well as a run of 15 games in a row when they held a lead.
The Cubs broke the 4-4 tie with a bases-loaded infield single by Kelly. He placed a slow grounder just inside the third-base line and Vargas had no play. Pete Crow-Armstrong followed by ripping a single into right field, scoring another run, but the runner from second base was thrown out at the plate by Kelenic.
The Cubs added on in the eighth when Dansby Swanson led off with a double and scored on a wild pitch. Later Matt Shaw drew a bases-loaded walk, and Kelly followed with a 2 RBI ground-rule double.
“We played a good offensive game tonight, for sure,” Counsell said. “I know it's been a little bit light the last four or five days, but we played a really good offensive game all around. Every at-bat, it felt like, we made it hard on them. A bunch of hits, walks, base running was really good.”
Neither starter completed 5 innings. Sox right-hander Sean Burke gave up 8 hits and 4 runs in 4⅓, while the Cubs' Edward Cabrera was charged with 3 earned runs on 3 hits and 3 walks.
There was the usual split crowd at Rate Field, with the attendance announced as 38,723. It was the first time both teams had winning records when they played each other, with fans in the seats, since 2008. It also happened in the pandemic season of 2020.