Guerra will be coming into this game having thrown a quality start in four out of his last five outings.
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Of course, in retrospect, the Chicago Cubs probably aren’t complaining too much.
“That was beyond hot out there today”, Chicago manager Joe Maddon said. “You want to have bragging rights in your city. I give our guys a lot of credit for hanging tough under those conditions”.
Smith’s ERA ballooned from 1.93 to 3.86 after failing to record an out while giving up five runs on three hits, a walk and an error.
Epstein made it clear that the Cubs didn’t cut themselves off from bigger deals leading up to the August 1 deadline by packaging two lower-profile minor-league prospects (first baseman Dan Vogelbach and pitcher Paul Blackburn) in the Montgomery deal with the Seattle Mariners.
“He let one come back over the middle a little bit, and I was able to square it up”, Lucroy said.
“The little stuff kind of led to a loss, but it is what it is and you move on”. Nathan allowed a triple to Jonathan Villar, the first hitter he faced, and then walked Hernan Perez, who promptly stole second.
Turner’s two-run double capped a four-run third.
After being held scoreless through five innings by Junior Guerra, Zobrist put the Cubs on the board with a run-scoring single in the sixth.
Orioles 5, Indians 2 • Mark Trumbo hit his major league-leading 30th home run as host Baltimore beat Cleveland.
Zobrist made it a 6-4 game with an RBI single but ended the inning trying to steal second.
Davies (7-4) gave up one run and three hits in 6 1/3 innings. “It’s a big spot in the game, for sure”. “We had some opportunities to add on runs in general, to score runs, and we didn’t capture those opportunities”. Then we had a couple defensive mistakes that hurt us. “You combine those two things and it kind of spoiled what was a great day by Junior Guerra again”. “It was a tough at bat, and I think I exhausted him out and he finally let one leak back out a little bit”. “Nearly tell myself, ‘Listen, now let’s take the results out of it, let’s try to get some quality pitches and see what we can do'”. That was only the beginning; there were another three stolen bases while Lester was pitching, plus several attempts that nearly certainly would have been successful if not for foul balls (though, to be fair, Jake Elmore was also caught stealing in the fourth).
NOTES: Chicago activated RHP Joe Nathan from the disabled list.
The other big story of this game, beyond Rizzo’s game-winning double, was the return of Joe Nathan to the major leagues after missing more than a year with Tommy John surgery. Adam Warren was optioned to Triple-A Iowa to make room for Nathan, who had signed a one-year deal with Chicago in May as a free agent. Cubs manager Joe Maddon gave OF Dexter Fowler a day off Sunday.
Failing to turn that potential double play wound up being disastrous. Maddon said Fowler’s right hamstring was sore but expected him to be back in the lineup Monday against the White Sox.
It was the third career multi-homer game for Nieuwenhuis, who had a solo shot in the fourth and a three-run homer in the eighth.
MARINERS 14, BLUE JAYS 5: Hisashi Iwakuma pitched six innings to win his fifth straight start, Nelson Cruz hit his ninth career grand slam and homered twice, and the Seattle Mariners routed the Toronto Blue Jays 14-5 on Saturday.
E-Elmore 1, Gennett 1.
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Inherited runners-scored-Grimm 3-0, Richard 3-2, Thornburg 1-1.
