The sort of long winning streak the Cubs (48-51) need to put together to reroute their trade deadline direction requires winning games in different ways.
More specifically, the Cubs entered Sunday with relievers Adbert Alzolay, Julian Merryweather, Mark Leiter Jr. and Michael Fulmer all having pitched each of the past two days, with Alzolay securing a pair of saves. The sort of back-and-forth battles where the Cubs triumphed Friday and Saturday could have pushed their high-leverage arms to their limits on Sunday.
In a 7-2 win on Sunday to secure a series victory, the Cubs remedied all those stressors by simply blowing the scuffling division rival Cardinals out of the water early.
“That was a huge series for us, especially to drop the first one and come back and win three,” said Trey Mancini, who had an RBI double in the third. “A very important time of year right now with the deadline coming up. As a player obviously, you don’t want to see any of your teammates get traded and you want to keep everyone together. Hopefully we can keep playing well.”
After Cubs manager David Ross spent the morning discussing the need to be more “detail-oriented” and opportunistic in adding more comfortable margins for the bullpen, he saw his club bludgeon Cardinals starter Jordan Montgomery for every mistake.
A two-out fielding error on an Ian Happ comebacker to the mound, was answered swiftly by a red-hot Cody Bellinger whacking his 14th home run of the season into the basket in dead center. When Montgomery issued a pair of walks in the third, inducing a bases loaded sacrifice fly from Bellinger suggested a reasonable escape was possible. But three-straight two-out run-scoring hits from Dansby Swanson, Yan Gomes and Mancini flipped the game into a laugher instead.
With the only Cubs multi-hit performance of the afternoon, Swanson now has four hits in his two games since returning from injury.
“We have the talent,” said Bellinger. “We’ve got some guys coming back and it just adds some depth.”
With a seven-run lead, Ross was provided ample room to try to wring as many innings as possible from starter Jameson Taillon. For the vast majority of Taillon’s season-high 109 pitches, that effort was rewarded with the right-hander’s third-straight encouraging outing.
Bedeviled by left-handers all season, Taillon caught a break with lefty slugger Nolan Gorman sitting Sunday with reported back stiffness after homering off Drew Smyly on Saturday. While left-handed first baseman Alec Burleson and All-Star Nolan Arenado combined for five hits, Taillon kept their teammates at bay with cutters and sweepers, striking out six and walking one.
Not for lack of trying from Ross, Taillon fell an out short of six innings, as three-straight two-out Cardinals hits ended the shutout effort in the sixth, and began a wave of typically lower leverage relievers landing the plane with some margin for error.
“We knew [Taillon] was going to have to give us some innings today,” said Ross. “The offensive production really helps on days like that. It takes some of the pressure off from a bullpen standpoint.”
Michael Rucker overcame a walk to strand the bases loaded in the sixth. Left-hander Anthony Kay got four outs to take the game into the eighth, and three days removed from throwing 56 pitches, Javier Assad handled the final 1 2/3 innings.
Maybe those aren’t the names top of mind when thinking about how the Cubs might power their way back in the NL playoff chase, after ending the weekend 5 1/2 games out of a Wild Card spot. But to turn a humble three-game winning streak into something longer, with seven more games against losing teams coming up to capitalize on, they’ll need everyone.
“We can obviously put a lot of weight into the games over the next week,” said Taillon. “But we’ve also had months to show who we are. You don’t want to overcook these games. But I do feel like we’re playing well right now.”