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It was a day game in Wrigley Field that was unseasonably warm. The wind was screaming out to dead center field. That’s usually the recipe for a lot of runs. Sure enough, the Cubs beat the Diamondbacks, 13-11 (full box score here). What made this game ridiculous was how everything unfolded, though.
It was only a 2-1 Cubs lead at the seventh-inning stretch!
The Cubs ratcheted things up a notch in the seventh, starting with an Ian Happ grand slam.
Kyle Tucker followed with a triple and scored on a Michael Busch single. It was 7-1 Cubs going to the eighth inning. Surely, this one was over. Right? Nah, man. It was warm and windy and both bullpens can be leaky. The Diamondbacks quickly singled three times to open the eighth, causing Cubs manager Craig Counsell to go to setup man Porter Hodge.
Eugenio Suárez made it interesting with a grand slam.
Little did we know, yet, just how interesting. After two outs and two more baserunners, Hodge induced a grounder to third base off the bat of Randal Grichuk, but Cubs third baseman Gage Workman just whiffed on it. The tying run scored and the go-ahead run was coming home. Happ launched a near-perfect throw to home to have Alek Thomas dead to rights at home, but Cubs catcher Carson Kelly couldn’t handle the one hop. The D-backs had the lead.
Keep in mind, now, that Arizona scored eight runs against the Cubs in the eighth inning last time these two teams squared off (March 30), turning a 6-2 deficit into a 10-6 win. Was it happening again?
The D-backs weren’t even done in the eighth. After a Josh Naylor walk, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. launched a three-run shot to give the D-backs an 11-7 lead.
Before the Diamondbacks would even record an out the next inning, though, Kelly hit a three-run bomb to cut the lead to one.
Kelly, by the way, hit a two-run homer earlier in the game. He only had nine home runs in 91 games last season. Right now, he’s hitting .419/.578/1.097 with six homers and 18 RBI. He started the season as a backup catcher, there for the purposes of being the veteran to help bring along youngster Miguel Amaya.
Anyway, let’s get back to the ridiculousness of this game.
It is now 11-10 D-backs. A Justin Turner strikeout became the first out of the inning, then Happ singled and Kyle Tucker did his thing.
Seiya Suzuki followed with a home run.
It was 13-11 Cubs.
That would be the final score. Some of the history we witnessed:
- This becomes the second Diamondbacks loss in franchise history when they scored at least 11 runs. The last time it happened was 1998, the first season for the expansion team. That game happened in Coors Field.
- The 16 runs in the eighth inning are the most in a single inning since 2016.
- The Cubs are only the fifth team in recorded history (over 125 years) to score at least six runs and allow at least 10 runs in the same inning, per MLB.com’s Sarah Langs. It hadn’t happened since 2004.
Keep in mind, also, the Cubs’ five-run seventh inning. That means there was a 1.5-inning stretch where the two teams combined to score 21 runs. In that stretch, there were 20 hits, which included six home runs. The six home runs alone produced 17 runs.
Take a deep breath.
The final result is the Cubs move to 13-9, holding onto first place in the NL Central. The Diamondbacks fall to 12-8.
The two teams will do battle in Wrigley Field again on Saturday, though it’s expected to be cold this time around. The bulk of the run scoring this weekend likely just happened — in 1.5 innings.
