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CHICAGO – There was a moment, just a moment, in the sixth inning When Yadier Molina's deep drive near the Wrigley Field when the score, the game, and even the tying run were as close to the Cardinals be all season to the Cubs.
The Cardinals get to show if that's telling, or misleading.
A one-run game in the sixth inning The Cubs scored 10 uninterrupted runs and drubbed the Cardinals 13-5 to complete a three-game sweep at Wrigley.
Kris Bryant's big slam in the eighth inning punctuated what would have been the Cardinals' worst loss of the season if not for home runs by Marcell Ozuna and Paul DeJong in the ninth to put on the swelling. The Cardinals for the first time at a club, the winners in their previous 10 games, and the game at the club. little loose.
"That's the way these series are gone the last couple of years with them. They've swept us. We swept them, "Cardinals leadoff hitter Matt Carpenter said. "The series was closer than it looked. They're swinging the bats well. We're kind of starting to cool off. The next time we can face the opposite. We might be hot red. I think there is something to be had when you play a team that is your equal, whatever team catches the breaks is the one that usually wins. We fully expect them to play tough all year long. This is what we signed up for. "
The Cubs won their seventh consecutive game in the National League Central. They swept the Cardinals at Wrigley for the first time since 2017 their archrivals to 17-5 since winning the 2016 World Series.
The Cardinals turned to a 3-0 start to their trip to Mike Shildt. The Cardinals had only been swept once before in his 103 games as manager.
The Cardinals slipped to 2-8 this season on the road against Milwaukee and the Cubs, the teams ahead of them in the last year's standings.
"This is going to be a dogfight all year," starter cards Adam Wainwright said. "They're playing good ball right now. They've got a little winning streak going. They're seeing the ball good. Some of their hitters who started out It's a game where you've gotten to really, really execute. "
Rather than some early litmus test on the division race, the series served as a reinforcement of why Shildt has put such an emphasis on keen fundamentals – or a reminder how fragile the Cardinals' aspirations can be those fundamentals wobble.
The crispness and verve with which the Cardinals played their best in the series in Wrigley was exactly what they saw reflected in the Cubs. The Cubs were not the best team on the scoreboard, but the crisper, more solid ballclub.
Kyle Hendricks and the Cubs' chessboard defense shut out the Cardinals on 81 pitches Friday. A misplaced, pinwheel cutter to a .000-hitter on Saturday landed in the bleachers to upend that game. And, on Sunday, the Cubs continued their sterling defense. They had the timely hits. They took the extra bases.
The Cubs played like the Cardinals before the Cardinals puts the Cubs.
"We did not want to ignore that it happened because it did," Shildt said. "It does not taste great at the moment."
In Sunday's loss, the Cardinals were saved from an entire inning of the game by a pickoff overturned on replay.
Still, Carpenter's Stretch for Third Base on a Rally Left Field When He Did, thrown out by several feet. Dexter Fowler came up shy of a diving catch in center that instead became an RBI triple that greased a Cubs' rally. After his two-run double hat trick Wainwright from the game, Anthony Rizzo coaxed reliever John Gant into a rundown that should have been avoided. Rizzo was out, but Javier Baez got all the way to a second ball that did not get past the mound. That could not be Rizzo might not have tried. Away the Cubs went, leading 6-2, then 7-2, then 13-2, piling on. Bryant's big slam was the fourth of his career.
It was the second Cardinals allowed in as many days.
They, meanwhile, left 19 runners on base in those same games.
The most expensive Sunday in the sixth inning. Molina tagged Cubs starter Jose Quintana for a two-out, two-run double that barely missed tying the game 3-3. Molina got to a third on an error – and ended the inning there.
With a one-run deficit to hold, Wainwright (3-3) started the sixth. The first three Cubs to get a third bathe against Wainwright all reached base, capped by Rizzo's double that turned a close game, like the series, into a runaway.
Shildt said pulling Wainwright at the start of that inning would have been "pretty overly aggressive and borderline foolish. You've got a guy who is controlling the game. "
Cubs were in control of theirs.
For the Cardinals, that looked familiar.
"It's not things I want to see in our game – it's things we are seeing in our game," Shildt said. "We set our bar. They did a nice job. They've got a nice team. They played the game. We do not set our bar to them. I think we're going to have good competition against them. I would not trade teams. "
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