Cubs held off Brewers’ celebration, while regaining third wild card spot
Not one, but two great things happened to the Chicago Cubs on Friday night, and both were needed considering the direction the team was going in of late.
The first of those was with its 6-0 victory, the Cubs kept the Milwaukee Brewers from popping open champagne bottles to celebrate winning the National League Central title. But it was what the Brewers did for their NL Central rivals that was more exciting.
The Brewers blasted the Miami Marllins, 16-1, and by doing so, the Cubs regained tthe third National League Wild Card position by their lonesome with eight games left in the regualar season
In their own victory, Jameson Taillon gave the Cubs a much needed boost on the hill, allowing four hits in six innings with four walks and seven strikeouts. From there, relievers Drew Smyly and Hayden Wesneski closed the door on the struggling Rockies with three innings combined shutout work, allowing two hits total.
“The goal is always to not give up runs,” Taillon said, “but today especially, I was just in the mindset of, ‘Can’t let these guys score.’”
The offense was provided mainly in the middle of the scoring. Seiya Suzuki, who had a first-inning RBI single and was 3-forf-4 in the game with two runs scored, walloped a two-run home run in the fourth to make it 3-0. And in the sixth inning Jared Young delivered a two-run home run to make it 5-0. Dansby Swanson added a seventh-inning RBI single to close out the scoring.
While the Marlins were getting thumped in their own ballpark, the Cincinnati Reds were losing to the suddenly hot Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-5, to drop a game and a half behind the Cubs for the final wild card spot. The San Francisco Giants stayed three games behind the Cubs after defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-1, and the San Diego Padres, four games back of the Cubs, continued to hang on by their fingernails after defeating the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2.
Game two of the three-game set is at 1:20 p.m as Marcus Stroman (10-8), coming back from a right rib cartilage fracture, returns to the mound for the Cubs to face Chris Flexen (1-8).
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