This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO – When Fergie Jenkins talks about his days pitching at Wrigley Field a half-century ago, the Cubs icon loves to mention how he would check the flags on his way into the old ballpark. That would tell him all he needed to know about what kind of afternoon was coming for him out on the mound.
The neighborhood around the Friendly Confines has changed over the decades, but the playing environment has remained consistently chaotic. This year, the Cubs are embracing that chaos and making it their own, turning Wrigley Field’s environment into as much of a home-field advantage as is possible in baseball.
“There’s unique factors that are not necessarily easier for the home team,” Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “But they are things you are more used to. And it’s taking the mentality that anything abnormal can be used to our advantage. That’s real.”
When the rival Brewers arrive at Wrigley on Monday for a three-game series – the teams’ first meeting since the National League Division Series in October – the Cubs will be riding a 15-game winning streak at home. It is the second-longest such streak since the club has occupied Wrigley Field, trailing only an 18-game run by the 1935 Cubs team that won 100 games, finished 56-21 at home and won the pennant. Per team historian Ed Hartig, the club record is a 21-game home winning streak in 1880 (Lakefront Park).
The Cubs’ streak dates back to April 12 and includes a pair of 7-0 homestands with wins over the Pirates, Mets, Phillies, D-backs and Reds. There have been six walk-off wins during the 15-game streak, including three in a row against Cincinnati. The run has helped the Cubs achieve an MLB-best 18-5 record at home, where the team has a +40 run differential over the 15-game streak.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau via MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, the Cubs are the first team since Cleveland in 2016 to have at least 36 days between home losses. Excluding seasons with work stoppages, the Cubs have only had seven instances in the Live Ball Era (since 1920) in which they went at least 36 days between home defeats. This is the first time the Cubs have done that since 2008 (38 days from May 17-June 24).
“Last spring, we did a good job of just openly talking about, ‘We’ve got to use Wrigley to our advantage,’” Cubs starter Jameson Taillon said earlier this year. “We have to find ways to win when the wind’s blowing in, when it’s blowing out, when it’s sunny, when guys are losing stuff in the lights and the sun. I felt like we did a good job last spring of addressing that.
“And I thought we were really good at home last year and I think we’ve kind of picked up where we left off this year.”
The Cubs posted a 50-31 record at home during the regular season last year and followed that up with a 4-1 showing at Wrigley Field during the playoffs.
Per Statcast, Wrigley Field has a 101 park factor this season to date, making it a slightly above-average environment for scoring runs. That comes after it stood at 98 last season, 91 in ‘24 and 101 in ‘23. There is some randomness involved in this factor, based on the home-game schedule and when the wind happens to be pitcher-friendly or transforms the old place into a bandbox.
“The weather is strange,” Hoerner said. “You deal with every type of weather there, and, obviously, the wind changes the actual run-scoring environment.”
To offer a snapshot: consider that the Cubs began the season 3-5 at home with a .317 slugging percentage and 92 weighted runs created plus in that span, when the colder climate and some unfriendly wind toyed with the results. In the 15 home games that have followed, the Cubs have slugged .491 with a 147 wRC+, averaging 6.1 runs per game.
Whether it is being familiar with the ballpark’s unique dimensions, or what it is like to deal with the ivy-covered brick wall, or understanding how a fly ball might react in the wind swirling overhead on a particular day, the Cubs have been – to quote Hoerner – “dominating Wrigley, making it our own, embracing all the types of games that we have here.”
“I’m not the type of person to believe something that I can’t physically see,” Cubs lefty Shota Imanaga said recently via interpreter, Edwin Stanberry. “But I feel like at Wrigley, there’s a power that you can’t see, but you can feel.”