Again at .500 with 6 straight wins, Cubs centered on push

ST. LOUIS — Ian Happ homered in his Major League debut in St. Louis. He was part of the 2017 Cubs staff that clinched the division at Busch Stadium in late September. The outfielder completed out the ‘19 season with a torrid stretch that concluded within the shadow of the Gateway Arch.

“I’ve had a lot of good memories in this park,” Happ mentioned.

That contains one other necessary second a 12 months in the past.

“I was told I wasn’t traded here,” he mentioned with a smile. “Which was nice.”

The Cubs have been in St. Louis on the Trade Deadline final summer season, when swirling rumors in regards to the futures of Happ and catcher Willson Contreras dissipated with no offers finished. The panorama was a lot totally different on Thursday night time, when the Cubs cruised to a 10-3 win of their rival’s yard and reached .500 once more (51-51) within the newest effort to persuade the entrance workplace so as to add earlier than Tuesday’s 5 p.m. CT Deadline.

Happ has since been locked in as a core piece through an extension that runs via 2026. Contreras departed through free company — netting the Cubs a compensatory Draft decide — and signed a five-year contract with the Cardinals. The pair of ’22 Cubs All-Stars have been linked once more on Thursday, however in a swift and violent means that modified the sport’s path.

Three batters into the night time, Happ swung at a Miles Mikolas pitch and inadvertently struck Contreras within the head on the backswing. With his head bleeding, Contreras was pressured to exit, giving Happ a fast “no hard feelings” hug earlier than leaving the sector.

“We played together for six years. We’re good friends. A lot of love for him,” Happ mentioned. “So, to see him go down and be bleeding from the head, it’s obviously a scary moment. We texted a little bit after the game, and he’s doing all right.”

Mikolas went excessive and tight along with his subsequent pitch, after which hit Happ on the bottom with the next fastball. After a fast assembly between the umpires, Mikolas was ejected from the sport. Cardinals supervisor Oliver Marmol was quickly tossed, too. In a span of some minutes, St. Louis’ deliberate battery underwent a makeover.

It was a wild begin to the sport between two groups with a protracted, historic rivalry with loads of wild chapters. But this Cubs staff is on the type of run proper now wherein such obstacles appear extra like a curb than a hurdle. Chicago parlayed that scary second right into a three-run rally within the first and continued so as to add on runs all through the night time. Meanwhile, lefty Justin Steele spun one other high quality begin.

“I think everybody in the locker room feels good with where we’re at,” mentioned Steele, who has an 11-3 report and a 2.87 ERA after his six-inning effort. “We’re clicking. What we’re doing right now, we feel like we can do this the entire season.”

With the Deadline looming, that’s the message the gamers maintain making an attempt to ship as much as the Cubs’ places of work.

The Cubs have received a season-high six video games in a row, have rattled off eight wins in 9 video games (that includes a +36 run differential in that span) and are 25-15 since June 9. Chicago is .500 for the primary time since May 12, and that is the third time in franchise historical past (additionally in 1968 and ‘96) that the staff reached the break-even mark in a season after falling not less than 10 video games below, per staff historian Ed Hartig.

That is an accomplishment, however nobody across the Cubs sees a .500 report as trigger for celebration.

“For me, it’s insignificant,” Cubs supervisor David Ross mentioned. “It’s about profitable video games. Break it down [by] month. We had a nasty May [10-18]. [Almost] all the pieces else has been above .500. And we’re taking part in good baseball proper now. That’s the main focus. We cannot fear in regards to the previous and the losses and what the report was and will have been, ?

“We look at the day to day and try to focus on winning. How are we going to win tonight’s game?”

Steele insisted that the gamers are usually not focusing an excessive amount of on the upcoming Deadline.

“I would say, if anything, we joke around about it,” mentioned the pitcher. “We’re all pulling on the same rope. We’re trying to win ballgames. We feel like we’re good at it. We like the group we have.”

And perhaps after two years of rebuilding, and up to date Deadlines outlined by subtractions, there will likely be some reinforcements on the best way.

“Things have turned out pretty well for me,” Happ mentioned of the Cubs’ choice to not commerce him final 12 months. “I think this group is playing as well as we have since the break, and [we’ve] kind of putting ourselves in the conversation.”