Chicago Cubs: Top 5 wins of the 2018 regular season

Chicago Cubs 7 – Arizona Diamondbacks 6

The conclusion of a four-game series between the Cubs and Diamondbacks took place on Thursday, July 26th on the North Side of Chicago.

For the final time before being removed from the Cubs’ starting rotation, Chatwood took the mound, meaning the other team fared quite well early in the game.

Chatwood threw 4.2 innings, walked six batters, gave up five hits, and allowed four runs; but he wasn’t the only starter not on the top of his game.

He certainly pitched better than his counterpart, but the Cubs still managed to collect seven hits and score four runs off of Zack Godley during his 5.2 innings of work.

Brian Duensing was called in from the ‘pen to try and mop up the mess that Chatwood left in the 5th, and couldn’t get out of it before allowing his own two earned runs. After the top of the 5th, the good guys trailed 6-1.

The Cubs offense managed just one extra-base hit through the first six innings, and the minimum number of batters came to the dish for the North Siders in the 7th and 8th.

Despite an offense that had failed to collect many big hits that day, the Cubs had a chance in the ninth against the Diamondbacks’ shakey closer Brad Boxberger – his 80% save conversion rate in 2018 was one of the lowest of all closers across both leagues.

Zobrist got the rally started with a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth. Next to the dish was NL MVP candidate Javy Baez, but his battle with Boxberger ended in a line out to the center fielder.

Serving as the tying run, David Bote stepped to the plate. In just his 57th MLB plate appearance, Bote hit a game-tying two-run homer into the left field bleachers. At the time, it was the biggest hit of his career.

Next to the plate was Anthony Rizzo, hitting in the leadoff spot. With two hits already in the game, Rizzo was locked in. Over his last 12 games, Rizzo was slashing an otherworldly .442/.545/.674.

On the second pitch of the at bat, Boxberger left an 80-mile-per-hour changeup down, but over the middle of the plate. Rizzo got all of it, blasting it over 450 feet out to right-center field.

In his 1,000th career game, Anthony Rizzo walked off the Diamondbacks on an absolute monster shot, giving the Cubs the series split at the Friendly Confines.

Anytime a game ends on back-to-back jacks, it’s going to go down as one of the most exciting finishes of the season. Yet it still couldn’t top what happened a month and a half earlier.