DARVISH SHINES VS. CUBS
He holds his former team to one run as Padres end brief skid
Tornado sirens blared at Wrigley Field for most of an hour early Monday evening.
Rain fell, thunder clapped, lightning flashed.
It was quite a show. Then the game started. A weather delay of one hour, 25 minutes just meant the Padres waited longer to continue hardly hitting.
Fortunately, waiting did nothing to stop Yu Darvish. The right-hander held his former team down for eight innings, and the Padres did eventually take their first lead in three games.
Three runs in the eighth against Rowan Wick, a former Padres reliever, were the difference in a 4-1 victory.
“We’re just continuing to believe in ourselves and continue to believe we’ll get that big hit,” said Eric Hosmer, whose two-run double in the eighth inning drove in the game’s final runs.
Darvish, making his first start at Wrigley Field since a wild-card series game against the Marlins on Oct. 2, 2020, allowed a run on five hits while going eight innings for the first time with the Padres.
It was the third straight start in which he went at least seven innings and the 10th time in 12 starts this season he has gone at least six.
Taylor Rogers pitched a perfect ninth for his 19th save, as the Padres (38-24) halted a losing streak at two games and moved within percentage points of first place in the National League West.
“We’re only 60 — I don’t even know how many games — in,” Jake Cronenworth said. “We’ve still got 100 to play, which is a lot.”
Even after scoring 29 runs in a three-game stretch last week, the Padres entered Monday ranked 15th in the majors with an average of 4.39
runs per game. They scored two runs in each of the three games between that offensive outburst and Monday’s game, batting .144 (13-for-90) in the process.
They got 10 hits Monday, four of them in the eighth inning.
Jurickson Profar began the eighth with a walk, moved to third base on Jake Cronenworth’s single and scored on a single by Manny Machado. Machado and Cronenworth moved up on a groundout by Luke Voit and scored on Hosmer’s double.
Three of the Padres’ first five hits Monday did not leave the infield.
That included their first hit, Cronenworth’s grounder up the middle that bounced off Cubs starting pitcher Justin Steele’s bare hand as he tried to grab it in the first inning.
Steele, who entered the game with a 4.79 ERA in 11 starts, tied a career high by getting through seven innings.
After the Cubs, who have lost seven straight, took a 1-0 lead on Yan Gomes’ home run in the second inning, the Padres put together a pair of hits to the outfield — Profar’s double and a single by Cronenworth — to tie the game in the third.
At least until the eighth inning, it was far more eventful in the hours leading up to the game.
Blue skies turned gray in the early afternoon, and the clouds grew dark as the Padres began batting practice around 3:30 p.m. PT. About a half-hour later, batting practice ended suddenly. The batting cage was quickly collapsed, as players jogged off the field and a tarp was placed over the infield.
After a few minutes, the siren rang out. Fans were directed to take cover in the concourse. Thousands of phones inside the ballpark began to beep with an alert that a tornado had been sighted in the area.
The only player on the field — actually the only person in any uncovered area — was Darvish. He ran and stretched for a time just before the heavy rain began falling around 4:40 p.m. PT and continued, along with loud thunder and lightning, for the next hour.
Just as suddenly as it started, the storm stopped. Fans returned to their seats. Darvish reappeared.