CHICAGO -- The way that Nationals center fielder Jacob Young slowly drifted back, it was not clear initially if Alex Bregman was about to have his milestone homer. The Wrigley Field crowd buzzed in anticipation and then the winds over the old ballpark took care of the rest.
In the fourth inning of Sunday’s 6-3 loss to the Nationals, Bregman’s shot to center off Washington’s Jake Irvin kept carrying and carrying, falling into the sea of fans in the bleacher seats for his first career home run for the Cubs. The crowd erupted and Bregman stuck out his tongue as he headed around third and faced his new teammates in the third-base dugout.
“I hit it hard, but maybe a little high,” Bregman said. “I got lucky a little bit that it carried on out of there.”
Bregman was not done, either.
The Cubs’ big offseason addition followed that first homer up with a solo home run in the eighth inning, trying to spark a rally. The second shot rocketed to right-center for an opposite-field blast off Nationals righty Cionel Pérez and marked the eighth multi-homer game of Bregman's career.
It has been a strong first impression for Bregman, whose first two blasts in the blue pinstripes came after the star third baseman signed a five-year, $175 million contract in free agency over the winter to join the North Siders. The outburst also comes after Bregman ended his spring with a homer in each of his last three games, including one off Yankees righty Gerrit Cole in the preseason finale.
Bregman was away from the Cubs for a spell during Spring Training while playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. In his nine games with Chicago in Arizona, however, the third baseman hit at a .524 (11-for-21) clip with eight extra-base hits and a 1.869 OPS.
“He’s a very good hitter,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “He’s very selective at the plate. He’s looking for his pitch and when he gets it, he puts a good swing on it. … I would agree that he’s been very locked in since Day 1.”
The first homer came off a pitcher in Irvin that Bregman had never faced prior to Sunday’s meeting, and the shot off a 2-2 cutter in the heart of the zone ended the righty’s no-hit run at 10 batters.
Then, as Bregman was reaching the end of the high fives and back slaps in the Cubs’ dugout, Ian Happ got in on the action, as well. Happ slashed an Irvin pitch to left, sending a low liner into the basket above the bricks for back-to-back blasts that cut Washington’s lead to 3-2 in the fourth.
On Opening Day on Thursday, Happ had a would-be homer pushed back by a violent wind that robbed it of 113 projected feet of distance, according to Statcast’s Weather Applied Metrics database. That flyout was an extreme example of how unfriendly Wrigley can be for hitters at times. For Bregman, however, his first homer for the Cubs was blown out an extra 25 feet, per Statcast. The Friendly Confines, indeed.
“When he gets pitches to do damage with, he puts the ball in the air the right way,” Counsell said. “And that’s a very good thing to do in this park, especially on days like this.”
The problem Sunday for the Cubs was that the Nationals also did damage in the air.
Joey Wiemer launched a three-run homer off Cubs starter Shota Imanaga in the first inning, marring an otherwise solid effort from the lefty in his season debut. In the eighth, Keibert Ruiz added a two-run shot off lefty Hoby Milner, effectively erasing the impact of the three combined blasts for Bregman and Happ.
“We couldn’t put men on base ahead of our home runs,” Counsell said. “That was the story of the game today, really. But it’s good to see Alex have a couple good swings and get things on the board and get going.”