With their playoff hopes flagging and the potential for selling at the trade deadline looming, the Cubs have longed for more production out of the top of their lineup.
Manager David Ross has eyed a moment to rest infielder Nico Hoerner, who had been scuffling before hitting an eighth-inning grand slam to put the finishing touch on an 8-3 victory Wednesday at Wrigley Field. But Ross has been handcuffed by an injury to Dansby Swanson that has formed a need at shortstop.
He has expressed hope that Monday’s home run was a return to form for left fielder Ian Happ, who has battled a monthslong power outage. And Tuesday’s four-hit outburst looked like a breakthrough for right fielder Seiya Suzuki.
So on Wednesday, top-of-the-order heroics came from Hoerner and … leadoff man Mike Tauchman? With a surprise pinch-hit cameo from catcher Yan Gomes?
Playing for his fourth major-league team at 32 years old, the left-handed Tauchman has been a sound option at leadoff against right-handed pitching for his judicious batting eye and on-base ability (.371 OBP). But the Palatine native also entered Wednesday with a .372 slugging percentage in 303 career games, signaling his likely contributions are setting up others for RBI opportunities.
Career-best nights have a way of boosting career numbers, and Tauchman followed a leadoff, opposite-field home run off former Cub Trevor Williams in the first with a pair of RBI doubles in the fourth and seventh. Three extra-base hits in a single game is a career first for Tauchman and a welcome rescue for a Cubs offense that entered the game 23rd in MLB in slugging for the month of July.
With the game knotted 3-3 in the eighth, an even more welcome rescue arrived from the typically defense-minded Gomes. Handed a bases-loaded situation, Ross tapped his typical starting catcher to pinch-hit for struggling designated hitter Trey Mancini, and was rewarded with a clutch go-ahead sacrifice fly.
Ross was hoping for an offense-wide carryover of good feelings from Tuesday’s 17-3 laugher over the rebuilding Nationals. The effect at least carried over for Tauchman, who has driven in six over the last two games, and 13 over 12 games played in July.
“It only takes one little a-ha moment,” Ross said. “It can be in a game, it can be a hit to turn that over to the next group, to the next day and then all of a sudden you get on a run offensively and you feel really good.”
Only temporarily before two runs off reliever Julian Merryweather in the eighth erased a 3-1 Cubs lead, Tauchman’s efforts put starter Kyle Hendricks in line for his fourth win of the season after twirling six innings of one-run ball.
Shaking off a combined six home runs over his last two outings, Hendricks righted the ship to lower his ERA to 3.38. Striking out five and walking no one, Hendricks is shaping up to post his best season since the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign.
A capsular tear in his throwing shoulder marred Hendricks’ 2022 season and delayed his debut this year, but this temperate July evening filled with changeups weakly chopped into the infield feels like it could have been pulled from any moment of Hendricks’ 10-year career.
“Just as steady as it gets as a competitor, work ethic, demeanor and performance when he’s healthy,” Ross said. “He’s a problem-solver on the mound. He figures things out.”
After allowing a career-worst four homers just five days ago, Hendricks figured things out to the point that the only damage against him on Wednesday came in the second inning, when Luis Garcia topped an outside fastball so severely that his counterpart Christopher Morel had no play by the time the two-out chopper returned to the infield grass. The RBI single was the second Nationals infield hit of the inning, plating Joey Meneses after a sharp infield single to lead off the frame.