Nico Hoerner at the plate (Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)
On Lou Gehrig day in San Diego, the Chicago Cubs outpitched and outhit the talented yet underperforming San Diego Padres. It was a low scoring affair, and the Cubs ultimately came out ahead 2-1.
Donning their Royal Alternate jerseys, the Cubs contrasted the home team’s uniforms in a major way. The Padres were wearing their bright and colorful Nike City Connect Series jerseys as they do for every Friday home game.
The first run was due to Nico Hoerner‘s knack for baserunning setup by Dansby Swanson’s sharply hit single. It was the sacrifice fly by Ian Happ that brought him home.
Is it baseball or tennis?
In the top of the fifth inning the Cubs would see more action at the plate. Swanson connected on an elevated 82 mph off-speed pitch for a home run over the left field wall. It would be his sixth of the season. The quick-witted Jon Sciambi compared the hit to a tennis swing, saying “Like a topspin forehand, he laced it over the wall!”
The racket shot added a single point to the lead and the Cubs went up by two runs.
They’ve been slumping since the injury to Cody Bellinger when he jumped up to rob a home run and landed awkwardly in mid-May.
The Padres on the other hand have also been struggling inside their own division. They aren’t getting the expected production from some of the big-name players who they gave sizeable contracts to. To top it off, their big star Fernando Tatis Jr. recently finished serving his suspension from last season. His arrival hasn’t sparked the explosion the fans were expecting.
Starting pitcher Jameson Taillon kept the Padres scoreless into the sixth inning, but he couldn’t get the quality start since he got pulled after giving up a single run.
After Juan Soto made the “worst swing of his career” as coined by Rick Sutcliff, he followed it up with a strikeout.
“Something has to give”
It may be too early to end the mentioning of worsts. As Sciambi pointed out, the Padres have the worst record in one run games and the Cubs have the second worst record in them, and “something has to give.” Something did give. It was the Padres.
Adbert Alzolay had an outstanding month of May on the mound. He came in after two batters got on base with nobody out. After Xander Bogaerts grounded into a double play, he struck out Tatis on a check swing that went around too far.
Mark Leiter Jr. bounced back from his recent poor outing and struck out Jake Cronenworth for the save.
The Cubs have won three of the last four games starting with Marcus Stroman’s complete game shutout. This was the first of a four game series against the Padres. They’ll play again tonight at 9:10 pm CDT.
