Bregman's second 3-HR night in August paces Cubs' rout

CHICAGO – If the Cubs are going to make the National League Central race interesting over the final month of the season, nights like Monday will go a long way.

The North Siders welcomed the rival Brewers to Wrigley Field for the opener of a crucial four-game series and flexed their propensity for power en route to a 17-3 rout. Alex Bregman went deep three times as part of a nine-homer attack that set a single-game record for home runs in the long, storied history of the Cubs.

The nine homers are tied for the second-most in a game in MLB history since at least 1900, trailing only the 10 homers launched by the Blue Jays on Sept. 14, 1987. Chicago’s 62 homers in August set a one-month record for the team, and are second all-time for a calendar month in baseball history. Only the 2019 Yankees (74 in August) have hit more.

The Brewers still have a commanding seven-game lead over the Cubs in the NL Central, but the rivals have six meetings left within the next nine days. Chicago is also in the thick of the NL Wild Card race – currently occupying the top slot in that race.

“We’re in a good place, absolutely,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “We’ve got a lot of fun ahead of us. We’ve got a lot of good things ahead of us. We’ve got a lot of challenges ahead of us. But, we’ve put ourselves in a really good position.”

Here were three keys to Monday’s win:

1. Solving Harrison

Kyle Harrison has enjoyed a breakout campaign for the Brewers and had two strong showings against the Cubs earlier this season as part of his body of work. On Monday, Chicago’s lineup flipped the script on the lefty.

Tyrone Taylor – in the lineup as the cleanup hitter for a day due to the lefty being on the mound – got things rolling with a two-run homer in the first inning. One batter later, Nico Hoerner also went yard off Harrison to help power a four-run outburst in the opening frame.

Bregman cleared the fence both in the second (two-run run shot) and as part of back-to-back blasts with Seiya Suzuki in the fourth inning. When the smoke cleared on Harrison’s day, he was charged with nine runs on 10 hits in 3 2/3 innings, and the five homers allowed were tied for the second-most ever in a game for a Milwaukee pitcher.

In his two previous starts against the Cubs this season, Harrison limited them to two runs total with 20 strikeouts against two walks in 12 innings. That included an 11-strikeout showing in seven shutout innings on May 20 at Wrigley Field. This time around, Harrison’s velocity was down across the board and he left far too many fastballs in the heart of the plate.

Harrison is hardly the only lefty to be ambushed by Chicago’s offense this season. In fact, entering play on Monday night, the Cubs led the Majors in slugging percentage (.453), OPS (.807), weighted on-base average (.353) and weighted Runs Created Plus (126) against left-handed pitchers.

2. Clay Holmes' steady hand

As the Cubs inch closer to potential playoff matchups, the debate over who should take the ball in Game 1 of a postseason series will gather steam. Right now, Holmes is looking more and more like a leading contender for that type of assignment.

In his first taste of the rivalry with the Brewers, the 33-year-old Holmes cruised through six shutout innings with a more balanced attack than usual. He upped the use of his cutter (22% usage, compared to just 9% on the year overall) and leaned a little less on his sinker. The result was more of the same for the righty.

Fifteen of the 18 outs recorded by Holmes in Monday’s win came either via strikeout (eight) or groundout (seven), and he walked off the hill with a 2.09 ERA on the season.

Holmes has finished with no runs on his line in three of his last four turns for the Cubs, allowing just one run total in 25 innings of work. That includes seven shutout frames in his previous start in Arizona against another team trying to chase Chicago down in the Wild Card standings.

3. Bregman’s ongoing surge

As Bregman has piled up hits and watched his season production improve at a rapid rate over the past month, the Cubs' third baseman has been adamant that this was not simply a run of good luck.

“I don’t feel like this is a hot stretch,” Bregman said earlier this month. “I feel like this is who I am as a baseball player.”

Bregman’s three-homer showing on Monday night marked his third multi-homer performance in the 33-game stretch that traces back to a four-hit game in St. Louis on July 27. Since that point, only Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (15) has had more homers than Bregman (13) in the Major Leagues.

In fact, Crow-Armstrong carried an MLB-leading WAR (2.5 per Fangraphs) into Monday’s action during that same time period, but Bregman was second (2.1) in that category. Including Monday’s output, the Cubs' third baseman has hit .328/.388/.701 with 13 homers, 12 doubles and 33 RBIs in his last 33 games.