LOS ANGELES -- Moisés Ballesteros raised his right arm skyward as he rounded first base and for a moment on Saturday night it looked like the Cubs had the makings of another inspiring win. That feeling was fleeting, as the magic that powered Chicago’s longest winning streak in a decade finally took a day off.
Ballesteros’ go-ahead blast off Dodgers righty Roki Sasaki in the fourth inning -- one of three homers in the game for the Cubs -- arrived just before the floodgates burst open for Los Angeles. The North Siders walked away with a 12-4 defeat, which snapped Chicago’s incredible 10-game winning streak.
That run was the longest winning streak for the Cubs since an 11-game stretch between July and August of 2016, when the franchise went on to end its 108-year World Series drought. It was the longest run of winning for the ballclub in the season’s first month since April of 1970. Cubs manager Craig Counsell was born later that same year.
Besides Ballesteros, whose two-out shot to right in the fourth gave the Cubs a short-lived 3-2 lead, the North Siders also had homers from Seiya Suzuki and Miguel Amaya. Michael Busch added an RBI single off Sasaki in the third, but that showing was hardly enough to overcome L.A.’s offense on this night.
Cubs starter Colin Rea gave up a two-run homer to Max Muncy in the third and then did not make it out of the fourth, when the Dodgers pounded out six more runs. With a tired and injury-marred bullpen at the moment, Counsell asked righty Javier Assad to cover 2 1/3 innings behind Rea, even as Los Angeles kept adding on runs.