After things looked so sour just a few days ago, the Cubs have now won three games in a row, and have reduced their magic number to two thanks to a big win over the Cardinals.
The bats did steady work against Adam Wainwright, and then took advantage of defensive miscues and wildness (well, with some umpire assists) to pad their lead late and put things out of reach. It’s good that they did, because a couple errors in the 9th by the Cubs gave the Cardinals two runs, which thankfully didn’t matter.
Kyle Hendricks worked very quickly and efficiently in this one, not collecting much in the way of strikeouts, but he let his defense do work, and didn’t really give up much hard contact at all until the third time through the order. He wound up going eight innings in this one, leaving him with … 199 innings on the season. He would have been given a crack at 200 in the 9th inning, but his spot in the order came up in the bottom of the 8th while the Cubs were rallying. And it helped them score three additional runs, so … sorry, many.
Bonus? By winning games this weekend, the Cubs are also ending the Cardinals’ season.
Great win for the Cubs. Now we watch the Brewers and Tigers tonight at 7:10pm CT.