*Photo from the Daily Item*
After losing 13 of 15 games heading into the all star break, and trading Joc Pederson during the break, the Chicago Cubs wanted to start the second half of the season the right way. Anthony Rizzo homered, Patrick Wisdom homered, and the Cubs defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-1 on Friday night, the first game back from the break for both teams.
Cubs manager David Ross said "These guys just came out and played nice baseball. We got the starting pitching, we got timely hitting, the big home run by Riz when they tied it up and obviously the pinch-hit home run by J-Hey was nice. It was just a good baseball game."
For the Cubs, the name of the game was the home run. In the second inning, Jake Marisnick did not hit a homer, but it was a sac fly to score a run and make it 1-0 Cubs. In the 4th, Rizzo hit a solo homer to right field, giving the Cubs a 2-1 lead. In the 7th, Wisdom hit a solo homer to left field, and Jason Heyward hit a two run blast to right, making it a 5-1 Cubs lead, that stuck.
Kyle Hendricks got the first start out of the break for the Cubs, and once again turned in a quality start. Hendricks allowed one run on 6 hits and 3 walks, notching 4 strikeouts over 6 innings pitched for the Cubs. After that, the bullpen took over, with Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin, and Craig Kimbrel each throwing shutout innings to secure the victory.
Hendricks said of his start that "I wanted to set a good tone, obviously winning being the main goal. It could have been a little better, I could have been a little more aggressive. I had a lot of long counts, a lot of baserunners, but made the pitches when I needed to."
The D-Backs offense continued it's struggles, only managing one run off of Hendricks and the Cubs chorus of relievers. Their only run came in the second inning, when Josh Rojas roped an RBI double to right field, scoring Bryan Holaday to tie the game 1-1 at the time, before the Cubs ended up pulling away.
Madison Bumgarner returned from the IL to make the start for the D-Backs, and put up a solid outing in his first game back. He gave up two runs, only one earned, on two hits and one walk, striking out 6 hitters over 6 innings pitched for Arizona. It's an encouraging sign for the oft-injured lefty, who has struggled in a D-Backs uniform.
Bumgarner said of his returning start that "I felt like it went pretty good. I feel like, overall, it was nice to get back out there. Wasn't super comfortable, you know, missing five or six weeks or whatever, so you're a little bit anxious once you get out there, but I thought it went pretty good."
The Cubs and D-Backs continue their series this afternoon, with Adbert Alzolay getting the ball for Chicago, and Zac Gallen looking to bounce back for the D-Backs.
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