ST. LOUIS - The Chicago Cubs head into the All-Star break on a high note.
A sweep by the St. Louis Cardinals in Saturday's doubleheader set up the Cubs looking to finish strong on a challenging road trip. Their bats and elite defense delivered while right-hander Jameson Taillon kept the Cardinals in check as the Cubs secured an 8-3 win Sunday.
The Cubs slugged six home runs, which featured two sets of back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning (Tómas Nido and Pete Crow-Armstrong) and the eighth (Ian Happ and Christopher Morel), the first by the franchise since 2019. It was part of multi-homer games for Crow-Armstrong and Morel.
Crow-Armstrong is the youngest player (22 years, 111 days) to hit multiple home runs in a game at Busch Stadium III, which opened in 2006.
"It was fun to watch for sure," manager Craig Counsell said. "We did a really nice job, we got down early but swung the bats really well. Just good swings. … Pete had his best day in the big leagues."
The Cubs finish the trip 5-2 to enter the All-Star break sitting at 47-51, the same mark they had through 98 games last year. With four days to recharge for the final 2 1/2 months, here are three takeaways from the Cubs' first half.
1. The rotation is consistently carrying the team.
Through all the injuries the Cubs have endured this season, their starting pitchers have provided the consistency that gives them at least a shot to make a run in the second half.
Following Taillon's performance Sunday (three runs in 5 2/3 innings), Cubs starters combined for a 3.67 ERA in the first half, ninth-best in the majors and fourth in the National League. Their 518 innings pitched are the 10th-most in MLB.
"I feel like at any given point we've been kind of carried by different people," Taillon said. "Like Steele has been absolutely incredible lately, Shota (Imanaga) has been incredible all year, but there was a point in time where he was just the best pitcher in baseball. I take pride in being steady. (Javier) Assad's been really, really good and I feel like we've gotten contributions from all over and doing it in a lot of different ways, which is fun.
"That's exciting for me to watch as a baseball fan and nerd. It's a good group. We throw a lot of strikes, super competitive crew, might not have the hardest fastballs in the league, but these guys all compete really hard."
As the summer grind hits over the coming weeks, the Cubs will need the rotation to continue to step up as some pitchers, including Imanaga, Assad and Hayden Wesneski, approach the most innings they've pitched in their professional careers. The Cubs plan to come out of the break with Justin Steele starting Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Counsell didn't reveal how the rotation will align after him, but Taillon will get the most rest since he pitched Sunday. And though they currently have six starters, they will not be using a six-man rotation the first time through.
"Everybody doing their part and if you prepare, that's all you can do," Nido said of carrying the starters' momentum into the second half. "Go out there and do what we do best. We have the ability here to get it done."
2. More production is needed from Morel.
The Cubs must hope Sunday represents an offensive building block for Morel.
Although his underlying metrics suggested he was extremely unlucky the first 2 1/2 months of the season, Morel has looked more out of sorts lately, at times caught between pitches and pulling balls instead of trying to go to the opposite field.
His first career multi-homer game Sunday represented more home runs than he had hit in his last 76 plate appearances in which he had struck out 25 times in 18 games.
"I feel really happy not just so for myself, but also because in those big moments when the team needed me the most, I was able to come through for them and I haven't really been able to sometimes have the numbers," Morel told the Chicago Tribune through an interpreter. "But I'm really glad that today I was able to come through."
The Cubs need hits to start falling for Morel, who posted a .202 average and .690 OPS in the first half. His defense hasn't progressed at third base the way the organization had envisioned coming into the year, either, resulting in Miles Mastrobuoni getting more time there against right-handers with Morel slotting in as the DH. If Sunday can be the start of an offensive turnaround for Morel, it would go a long way in making the Cubs' lineup more potent.
"Just taking it all in," Morel said of how he is digesting his first-half performance. "Having that first experience in the big leagues since the beginning of the season and just taking all those experiences and a lot of just learning from my teammates who have been there for me."
3. The Cubs again face the pressure of needing a great second half.
When the Cubs' playoff hopes crashed during the final weeks in September after rallying from a rough first half, returning players vowed 2024 wouldn't play out similarly.
And yet the Cubs head into the break in last place in the NL Central and 3 1/2 games back of the last wild-card spot behind six other teams. It's again not an enviable position they sit in and it will require a complete team effort to return to the postseason for the first time in a 162-game season since 2018. But the past week has at least given them a chance and could send a message to the front office to acquire some additional help before the July 30 trade deadline.
"I feel like we can play with anybody and it's one thing to say it and it's another to go out and do it and show that we can go into Baltimore in their place and play really well, play a complete game like today and do it," Taillon said. "So I think it's a message to ourselves we really can play with anybody. And now we have the second half to go out and do it."
