Death, Taxes and Kyle Hendricks Owning the St. Louis Cardinals
The Cubs took a four-game winning streak into St. Louis, but even after riding high following a three-game sweep of the Orioles their momentum would have been derailed with a loss Friday night. But guess who was starting against the Cardinals?
Kyle Hendricks has a bad back and because of it on any given day it can act up and cause the veteran pitcher problems. That’s what happened last week at Wrigley Field against the Los Angeles Angels, as Hendricks only lasted two innings before he was pulled because of lower back soreness. Well, the back was good to go in St. Louis and Hendricks did what he always does against the Cardinals…dominate.
This is just crazy. There’s no hiding the fact that Hendricks has not been sharp this year and despite a solid stretch in June, when he was putting together good starts Hendricks entered Friday with a 7.53 ERA. But it doesn’t matter because it was the St. Louis Cardinals and Kyle Hendricks owns them.
Hendricks tossed seven shutout innings and limited the Cardinals to five singles. At no point did the Cardinals have a base runner reach second base against Hendricks, who only walked one batter and struck out three on 90 pitches.
Back in June, Hendricks also pitched against the Cardinals and in 4.1 innings of relief he shut them down, giving up no runs and only two hits. Following Friday’s 5-1 win in St. Louis, the 2016 World Series legend is now 14-4 with a 2.51 ERA in 28 career games against the Cardinals.
Beautiful.
Offense Staying Hot
The Cubs enter Saturday’s double header winning 7 of their last 8 games and during that stretch the offense has scored 5+ runs 6 times. The other two games were last Saturday’s shutout loss and then their 4-0 win against Corbin Burnes in Baltimore.
Ian Happ, Michael Busch and Seiya Suzuki have certainly been stepping up, but other guys are starting to produce at the plate as well. Miles Mastrobuoni is now starting more often than not at third base and during the month of July the left-handed hitter is 7-for-19, with a pair of walks and no strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Dansby Swanson has three consecutive two-hit games, which includes a home run and double. The Cubs need more slug from their lineup, so seeing Swanson hammering some balls again is a great sign.
Miguel Amaya had a two-hit game Friday night, both against Sonny Gray and also contributed with a sac-bunt that led to the Cubs’ first run in the third inning.
Nico Hoerner has three straight two-hit games and while there hasn’t been much slug in his game it’s good to see positive results again from the leadoff spot. His contact skills remain elite and on Friday he came through with an RBI-ground out and a sac-fly that scored a second run.
The Cubs are finally playing like they were in April and hopefully this good run doesn’t stop.