The dateline on this last stop of the Cubs’ nine-game trip was 35th and Shields, South Side.
Considering he was able to sleep in his own bed Thursday night, would this rank as half a home game for Cubs manager Craig Counsell?
“That’s a good way to say it,’’ Counsell said. “It’s nice when you look at the schedule and you see nine games of gray boxes (road games), but then you finish at home, yeah, it is nice.’’
How much did the Cubs make themselves at home in Rate Field? They put their feet up on the furniture, left towels on the floor and empties on the coffee tables, invited thousands of their closest friends to hang out and howl, and generally acted like they owned the place, much to the chagrin of their hosts.
After a week of looking out of sorts in Texas and Georgia, the Cubs settled in nicely at the Rate, once again resembling the team that had raked its way to a pair of 10-game winning streaks in the first 40 games of the season.
With every player in the Cubs’ starting lineup collecting at least one hit, three players two and Carson Kelly three, including the baseline-hugging ground-ball single that broke a 4-all tie in the seventh, the Cubs whacked the White Sox, 10-5, before a crowd of 38,723 that carried on all night for both teams but accommodated far more carpetbaggers than Jerry Reinsdorf would have liked.
“We played a really good offensive game tonight, for sure,’’ Counsell said. “I know it’s been a little bit light the last four or five days, but we played a really good offensive game all-around.
“I mean, we just made it hard. Every at-bat, it felt like we made it hard on them. Bunch of hits, walks, the base-running was really good. It was a very good offensive game.’’
The Cubs’ 10 runs doubled the five they’d scored over the previous five games, including back-to-back shutouts in Texas.
Beginning with Ian Happ’s RBI single in the first and ending with Kelly’s two-run double in the eighth, when the Cubs scored four times to break it open—aided by four White Sox walks—the Cubs had 6 hits in 14 chances with runners in scoring position. They had been 1 for 34 with RISP in their last five games combined.
The Cubs did not hit a home run Friday night—twice Alex Bregman came just short with towering drives to center, which were better struck than his two singles—but they hit four doubles. They scored one run on a wild pitch, another on a bases-loaded walk.
When asked a couple of days ago about the Crosstown Rivalry, Kelly had said, “You’re asking the wrong guy,’’ noting last season was his only previous exposure.
After knocking in a game-high four runs Friday, all greeted with thunderous cheers drowned out only by the PCA chants for you-know-who, Busch was asked if he had a better appreciation of what was at hand.
“Oh, it’s special,’’ he said. “I mean, there’s a lot of history between these two organizations and to be a part of it is really cool. To see the energy in the stadium and the crowd, you know it’s always going to be fun playing these guys.’’
In the midst of the runpalooza, Counsell admonish his interrogators not to overlook bespectacled reliever Trent Thornton, who has been a Cub for all of nine days after six up-and-down seasons with the Jays and Mariners, has made four appearances, and has yet to allow a run in any of them.
The right-hander inherited a first-and-third, no-out situation in the sixth after Miguel Vargas had just tied the score with a home run, emerged unscathed from that jam, then set down the side in order in the seventh.
“We’ve got to talk about Thornton tonight,’’ Counsell said. “That was a huge effort. It wasn’t the ninth inning, so it doesn’t seem like a save, but that’s a save in a baseball game.