ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝

The Cubs flaunted how fast and how much they could create.

Led by Michael Busch’s three homers and Pete Crow-Armstrong’s two, the Cubs set a new franchise record with eight home runs in one game on the way to 11-3 drubbing against their archrivals Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field. As lopsided as the score seems, the actual game was worse.

The Cardinals were never in it.

At one point in the early innings, the Cubs had hit more home runs off starter Miles Mikolas than he had outs, and by the time he collected his eighth out of the game, the Cubs already had six homers and a 7-0 lead.

The six home runs allowed by Mikolas (4-6) are the most ever by a Cardinal pitcher, and the eight home runs allowed total are the most ever by the Cardinals in a single game.

The Cubs hit back-to-back homers three times in the afternoon.

The Cardinals didn’t have back-to-back baserunners in the first eight innings.

The Cubs tied their club record of seven home runs for the fifth time when Dansby Swanson homered in the seventh inning, and he had just finished rounding the bases when Busch hit his third home run to set the record. The Cubs also tattooed the right-field scoreboard with two home runs in the third inning off Mikolas. Crow-Armstrong finished with four hits and four runs, and Busch became the first Cub with a three-homer day since 2021 and the second Cub with three homers on Independence Day. 

On a muggy Fourth of July with 40,078 at Wrigley and temperatures in the 80s, the conditions sure seemed friendly for the hitters.

Offense was a breeze for the locals.

Home runs were soaring at record paces.

But through eight innings, the Cardinals had one hit.

True, it was a home run.

But the Cubs had more players (two) with multiple home runs in the game than the Cardinals had hits as a team (one). The Cardinals didn’t get a second hit until the Cubs put in a position player to pitch.

Cubs starter Colin Rea allowed one hit through his 6 2/3 innings. Mikolas took the bruising early and wore the innings later, pitching through the sixth inning to save the bullpen from at least one additional inning in the first game of this series.

The first-place Cubs opened up a 6 1/2 game lead on the Cardinals with two more games to play in this series. The Cardinals have lost six of their past nine.

The Crow-Armstrong Show

It did not take long for the Cardinals to get their first glimpse of the crowd-pleasing sensation that has been playing all season on the North Side of Chicago.

A favorite for fans for his speed, power, and acrobatics in the outfield, Crow-Armstrong showed all of that in the first five innings of the holiday game.

It took him only one inning to dominate the game.

In the top of the first inning, Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn rocketed a line drive to the left-center gap. The ball traveled 333 feet, and there are few center fielders who would be able to retrieve the ball before it reached the outfield wall. Crow-Armstrong caught it before the ball hit the grass. The second-year center fielder went full Superman — low to the ground, glove outstretch, parallel to the grass — and caught the liner for an out.

In the bottom of the inning, he drilled the first of hits no one could catch.

Crow-Armstrong is headed to the All-Star Game as a starter, and he received more votes than any player in the National League who isn’t a Dodger. In ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ this past month, Cubs manager Craig Counsell guessed it could be the popularity has something to do with Crow-Armstrong’s speed. The 23-year-old also has 23 homers after the first half of Saturday’s game and 66 RBIs. And, yes, there’s the speed.

He had the closing speed to steal extra-bases from Winn, and in the fifth inning, Crow-Armstrong advanced from first to third on a groundball to Winn.

That put him in scoring position for the Cubs’ eighth run.

He was Busch’s fourth RBI.

Swinging superlatives

The public address announcer in the press box was in the middle of explaining that Crow-Armstrong’s second homer was the 25th ever to clang off the right-field scoreboard that a Cub once put a home run on top of against the Cardinals. That’s when Busch hit the 26th.

This happened several times throughout the game.

When Busch and Carson Kelly hit back-to-back home runs in the second inning, the Cubs official was just catching the media up on the previous back-to-back home runs. Seiya Suzuki and Crow-Armstrong hit the eighth back-to-back home runs of the season for the team and the first since June. Busch and Kelly hit the ninth back-to-back home runs of the Cubs season and the first since a few minutes earlier in the previous inning.

The homers kept flying and so did the records.

Mikolas became the first pitcher since 1930 to allow six home runs in a game to the Cubs. The most recent starter to do it was New York Giants right-hander Larry Benton, who was born in ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝. The six home runs off Mikolas before the end of the third inning were also the most hit by the Cubs that early in a game in their history — stretching back to 1876, the centennial year.

Cardinals’ scoreless streak ends

While the Cubs put on a show of force in the first three innings, the Cardinals remained absent from the scoreboard even in the friendly hitting conditions of Wrigley.

The Cardinals were shutout in three consecutive games at Pittsburgh, and they had not scored a run against a National League opponent in 49 innings.

They are the first team since the advent of division play to go five consecutive games without a run against a division rival, and three innings into Saturday’s game they still hadn’t found a way to bring home a run. They trailed 7-0 and were still looking for their first baserunner, let alone a run.

Their quest for both ended on the same swing.

Brendan Donovan lofted a ball to left field that dropped out of reach for a solo homer in the fourth inning. Donovan’s seventh homer of the season traveled an estimated 365 feet. It ended the Cardinals’ scoreless streak within the division at 52 innings, and assured that for the first time in 11 games they would not be shutout when they lose.

Through eight innings, Donovan’s hit was the Cardinals only hit.