*Photo from the Chicago Sun Times*
Anthony Rizzo was 13 pitches into his 6th inning at bat, deep into a duel. On the 14th pitch, he got Wrigley field rocking. Rizzo hit a solo homer to cap off a 14 pitch at bat, Joc Pederson and Willson Contreras homered, and the Chicago Cubs defeated the St.Louis Cardinals 8-5 on Friday night.
Rizzo said of his electric at bat that "It was definitely one of my most memorable at-bats. With it being 100% today for the first time and having everyone here, versus the Cardinals, it was a really good moment for me."
Pederson started the scoring for the Cubs with a 4th inning solo homer, making it a 2-1 Cardinals lead at the time. In the 5th, Contreras and Sergio Alcantara both scored on passed balls, and it was 5-4 Cardinals. In the 6th, Rizzo tied the game with his solo homer. In the 7th, Pederson hit a two run double, and Contreras hit a solo homer in the 8th to make it 8-5.
The Cubs were celebrating a return to normalcy at Wrigley Field on Friday as well. It was the first game with a full capacity crowd this season for the Cubs, deemed "opening day 2.0", as the city of Chicago is almost fully re-opened again, with the Covid-19 Pandemic seemingly in a recession.
Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said "This is sort of symbolic of the opening of the city. It's probably what it should be for the city of Chicago, that Cardinals-Cubs kind of opens the city back up."
Matt Carpenter got the Cardinals a 1-0 lead with an RBI single to right field in the second inning. In the 3rd inning, an RBI single from Nolan Arenado stretched the Cardinals lead to 2-0. In the 5th, an RBI double from Dylan Carlson and a two run single from Arenado made it a 5-1 lead for the Cardinals, before the Cubs rallied back to win.
Genesis Cabrera got the loss for St.Louis, getting just one out in his relief appearance, allowing two runs on 3 hits. Johan Oviedo got the start for the Cardinals, allowing 4 runs on 5 hits and one walk, recording 5 strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings pitched. Daniel Ponce De Leon, Ryan Helsley, Jake Woodford, and Giovanny Gallegos also pitched for St.Louis.
Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said of the loss that "Some days it doesn’t go your way. We played a really good game day before yesterday, so I don’t want to look into the rear-view mirror too much, but we’ve played a lot of clean baseball. We did a lot of great things today."
The Cardinals and Cubs continue their series on Saturday night, with John Gant getting the start for the Cardinals, and Kyle Hendricks going for the Cubs.
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