Both teams may be off to less-than-ideal starts, but that didn’t seem to stop the aura at Wrigley Field on Monday, as the Giants returned to Chicago for the first time since the 2016 NLDS.
It wasn’t easy, but unlike that fateful Game 4, the Giants withstood a ferocious late-inning Cubs rally and refused to let a stellar Ty Blach start go to waste as they defeated Chicago 6-4 in the first of a four-game series.
Blach tossed seven straight shutout innings for the Giants before Javier Baez launched a two-run home run to right in the bottom of the eighth. A pinch-hit triple next at bat by top prospect Ian Hopp would end Blach’s night, and cue in Derek Law who promptly gave up the second two-run blast of the inning to Ben Zobrist.
But there would be no late inning heart break this go-around as Hunter Strickland came in with two on, one out and the “not this time” mentality. He got Wilson Contreras to double into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning, topped with an emphatic fist pump from Blach in the dugout.
Mark Melancon entered in the ninth and picked up his eighth save of the season, showing the North side that it may have been a different story if he was around last year.
Since his ten run explosion against Cincinnati on May 6, Blach seems to have settled into a groove. He scattered seven hits, walked none lowered his ERA to 3.48, overtaking Johnny Cueto for the rotation’s lowest ERA In his last three starts, he’s given up just three runs over 21 innings and with his win Monday, picked up back-to-back wins for the first time in his career.
The Giants offense added three solo home runs to their consecutive solo shot streak and tagged Cubs starter John Lackey (4-4, 4.82) for five runs in five innings, scoring in every inning but the second.
Joe Panik, batting leadoff in the place of the injured Denard Span, took advantage of a wind blowing straight out of the park and wasted no time in getting the Giants on the board. He sent Lackey’s payoff pitch over the fence in left-center for the second basemen’s first career leadoff home run and the Giants sixteenth consecutive solo shot.
Panik just missed his second homer of the game in the third, settling instead for a RBI double that bounced off the base of the right-field wall, scoring Gorkys Hernandez. Belt would single in Panik two batters later to make it 3-0.
Eduardo Nunez singled to lead off the fourth and Justin Ruggiano followed with the Giants’ second RBI double of the game. In the fifth, Belt sent a 0-1 pitch from Lackey into the left field seats to make it 5-0, and notched number 17 on the solo shot streak.
Number 18 came via Ruggiano, leading off against reliever Hector Rendon in the eighth. It was the Giants’ first three-homer game on the year. The Giants are also three solo shots away from tying their own major league record with 21.
Panik would finish the day 3-4 with a home run, two doubles and a hit by pitch. He was more than due, as he entered Monday’s game with just two hits in his last 22 at-bats.
Next up for the Giants will be Johnny Cueto (4-3, 4.50 ERA) against Jon Lester (2-2, 3.57 ERA), the potential match-up of the haunting “what if” Game 5 in last years NLDS. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m.