“I picked a good day to be s–ty”, Arrieta said after he gave up four runs in five innings.
Advertisement
In New York, Russell Martin hit his first two home runs of the season, Michael Saunders also went deep and Toronto finally broke out its big bats, halting the Yankees’ six-game winning streak.
Kris Bryant hit a three-run homer and Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist each drove in two runs for the Cubs.
Arrieta survived this one on Wednesday, battling through five innings against the Cardinals as teammates out-hit his struggles in a 9-8 victory that gave the Cubs their second series victory over the Cards in St. Louis in the last five weeks. It’s that they have a lot of players who can hit them. Adams, Jeremy Hazelbaker and Brandon Moss have combined for seven of the nine pinch-homers, and all see fairly consistent playing time. To accompany his 20 wins during the stretch, the veteran hurler has also amassed 162 strikeouts and a 1.05 ERA across 162.1 innings of work.
Martinez pitched 5.0 innings in his last outing, surrendering four runs, striking out three and walking three in an 11-7 defeat to the Diamondbacks. “And I’ve got four months to go”. Grichuk’s sixth homer of the year capped an evening where the Cardinals played from behind after Chicago (29-14) wiped out a short-lived 1-0 lead with two in the fourth and another run in the fifth.
“We don’t hit the panic button when we don’t score runs or pitch”, pitcher Jason Hammel said. After all, a quick look at the division leaders shows a Cubs logo above a Cardinals one, with the Pittsburgh Pirates sandwiched in between.
He’s now batting.224. He entered the game slashing.221/.321/.412 with three home runs in 68 May at-bats, compared with a.227/.288/.561 line with six long balls in 66 at-bats in April.
It was the second game in which a Cardinals starter had been touched for six runs in an inning.
The Cardinals were poised to win the game in the ninth after Stephen Piscotty and Adams opened with singles against Hector Rondon.
Ivan Nova (3-2) threw well again but lost for the first time in four starts since moving from the bullpen to the rotation.
Randal Grichuk swung mightily at Adam Warren’s 2-1 slider in the bottom of the ninth and came up empty.
Miami got 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief, while Tampa Bay saw rookie Tyler Sturdevant, a day removed from his major-league debut, give up three hits and the go-ahead run in 0.1 innings.
DETROIT – Odubel Herrera hit a three-run homer and Peter Bourjos added a solo shot to help power Philadelphia over Detroit.
Aside from the Cubs-White Sox rivalry, Chicago has a well-documented NL Central rivalry with the Cardinals, which is why so many people have taken pause at the above image.
Chicago scored six runs in the second against Carlos Martinez and three more in the sixth against Seung Hwan Oh on Wednesday and held on to beat the Cardinals, who completed their nine-game homestand with a 4-5 record.
NOTE: The Cardinals are 7-3 in games in which Adam Wainwright starts and his ERA is 5.77. Game two, Cubs began the game with a 6-0 lead and were never threatened in their 12-3 rout.
Advertisement
Melky Cabrera hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning, and Jose Abreu had three hits for the White Sox.
