Cubs’ bats get again to ‘passing the baton’ in rout of O’s

CHICAGO — Cubs runs got here in bunches in Friday afternoon’s 10-3 win over the Orioles at Wrigley Field.

Miguel Amaya, Dansby Swanson and Christopher Morel hit a trio of solo residence runs within the third inning. Swanson and Morel went back-to-back — marking the sixth time the Cubs have hit back-to-back dingers this season — to provide Chicago an early 3-0 lead, and so they piled on insurance coverage runs within the sixth.

In that inning, Ian Happ continued the tear he has been on because the Cubs returned residence from a 10-game highway journey. After pinch-hitter Mike Tauchman and Trey Mancini walked, Happ pinch-hit for Patrick Wisdom and plated them each with a single to proper area. Happ has logged successful in every of his final 4 video games, together with a house run Tuesday in opposition to the Pirates, his first homer since May 5.

Happ’s two-run single drove within the first of six runs the Cubs scored within the sixth inning. Nico Hoerner, Morel and Seiya Suzuki every chipped in RBI hits. It’s the fourth straight sport the Cubs have scored at the least 4 runs in an inning, one thing that they had not finished since a stretch that ran from June 28 to July 1, 2018, in opposition to the Dodgers and Twins, per staff historian Ed Hartig. The Cubs added on within the seventh on one other Hoerner RBI single.

Through a lot of the first two months of the season, the Cubs have been among the many league leaders in stranding runners, and particularly in scoring place. Going into Friday, the Cubs have been third-highest in baseball with 7.37 stranded runners per sport. But they’ve since improved to ninth in baseball in stranding runners in scoring place (3.59 per sport), down from fourth within the league a month in the past.

“All the R&D guys will tell you what the luck stats are, and I think that’s one of them,” supervisor David Ross stated. “We were very unlucky in those moments. Luck is going to turn.”

Those struggles with getting runners throughout the plate earlier within the season are part of why the Cubs are nonetheless close to the underside of their division. But an offensive efficiency like that they had on Friday — the lineup drew 5 walks and tallied 12 hits — will assist elevate them within the standings if it continues.

Swanson famous that, as a gaggle, the hitters have labored on adjusting on the plate and so they have been higher at “passing the baton” by the lineup and enjoying their fashion of baseball.

“We’ve taken a really good approach and mentality into the batter’s box, and we’ve been rewarded for that,” Swanson stated.

Morel’s homer within the third inning was his third within the final six video games. Since June 9, Morel is batting .440 with simply two strikeouts to 11 hits. He has dropped his strikeout fee all the way down to 29.2%, and he ranks first in slugging proportion (.709) and second in OPS (1.063) amongst MLB hitters with at the least 100 plate appearances.

Morel’s six-game sizzling streak comes after he was taken out of the lineup through the Cubs’ sequence in opposition to the Angels in Anaheim June 6-8. This got here on the heels of an eight-game stretch wherein Morel hit simply .048.

“I think sometimes perspective from the side and being able to take a minute to work on things without pressure to perform in the moments is probably healthy for everybody that’s going through some struggles,” Ross stated. “It’s a hard balance, trying to play the matchups and see who’s swinging the bat well and balance that with what you feel like is going to help the team win.”

Morel stated the off-days helped, and through that Angels sequence Swanson advised him he thought the struggles on the plate have been partly as a consequence of urgent and letting the sport pace up. Morel joked that, since he returned to the lineup, he says “Thank you, Swanson” to himself after he will get successful.

The Cubs’ 4 straight wins since returning to Wrigley Field matches the longest successful streak they’ve had this season. They final gained 4 in a row April 16-19 in opposition to the Dodgers and Athletics. Chicago got here into Friday’s sport simply 3 1/2 video games again within the NL Central, and with three extra video games in opposition to the first-place Pirates subsequent week, it has a chance to make a leap within the standings.

“We see what’s in front of us with our division, so just gotta get hot, get on a roll, feel that sense of urgency,” Kyle Hendricks stated.