CHICAGO -- Michael Conforto could not stop smiling as he rounded third base and headed to the plate, where his Cubs teammates were waiting to swarm the veteran and get the celebration rolling. Conforto could not remember hitting a walk-off home run in his life -- maybe as a Little Leaguer -- and he was soaking up every step.
The opposite-field shot Conforto sent into the sea of delirious fans in the bleachers on Monday night delivered a 5-4, walk-off win over the Reds at Wrigley Field. It capped off a wild ninth-inning rally against closer Emilio Pagán and sent the North Siders rolling to their sixth win in a row, and 12th consecutive win at the Friendly Confines.
Not bad for Conforto’s first home run for the Cubs.
“It’s really, really cool,” Conforto said. “With the home winning streak we have, the way that the team’s playing, scrapping, doing everything they can to win. Yeah, it’s awesome I got the opportunity to go out and do that.”
The winning streak at Wrigley Field is the longest for the ballclub since a 14-game run in 2008. The record for the team since it occupied the old ballpark at the corner of Clark and Addison is an 18-game streak in September of 1935. And for those curious, the franchise record is a 21-game stretch in 1880 at Lakefront Park, per team historian Ed Hartig.
To extend this streak to a dozen wins, Cubs manager Craig Counsell turned to a hitter who had not appeared in a game yet this month. Conforto fills a sporadic role as a backup outfielder, and had not played since Wednesday in San Diego and had not taken a pinch-hit at-bat since April 25. He only has 39 plate appearances in 18 games this season.
Counsell praised the 33-year-old Conforto -- a veteran of 11 Major League seasons -- for how he has accepted and embraced his job. The outfielder has hit .323 with a .984 OPS in his limited playing time, while helping a reserve group that has produced a collective 1.068 OPS in 33 pinch-hit at-bats.
“What Michael did, it’s so hard,” Counsell said. “He didn’t have an at-bat this weekend. It’s no at-bats in four days. There’s nobody on base. But, he’s got the ability to do that. And he got a pitch up and put a great swing on it.”
The Reds had taken a 4-3 lead in the eighth inning on a bang-bang play at the plate -- erasing the impact of Seiya Suzuki’s 455-foot, game-tying homer in the fourth -- and handed the ball to their closer for the ninth. Pagán opened by getting Pete Crow-Armstrong into an 0-2 count, but the center fielder hung in there and got a splitter that he could drive.
Crow-Armstrong launched the pitch to deep center, where outfielder Dane Myers raced to the wall and made a leaping attempt in right-center. Myers was unable to secure the ball as he crashed into the ivy-covered bricks. As he landed, the baseball hit the ground and Crow-Armstrong was off to the races with a triple.
“The way that ball was hit with the wind blowing out,” Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner said, “it kind of felt like it was either going to be a caught-or-gone kind of thing. I thought he caught it, which is deflating. And then you see the ball on the ground and it’s an automatic triple with Pete running. I knew we had a chance.”
Two batters later, Hoerner sent a pitch from Pagán to left field, where JJ Bleday was in position to make the catch and come up firing. Bleday unleashed a 98.5 mph throw home, per Statcast, but Crow-Armstrong tagged and scored to pull the game into a 4-4 deadlock.
“That’s exactly who you want up,” Crow-Armstrong said of Hoerner.
“It’s nice having Pete on third,” Hoerner said with a smile.
Meanwhile, Conforto had been getting loose inside the cage since the eighth inning. Matt Shaw had entered earlier as a pinch-hitter for Moisés Ballesteros and that spot was due up after Hoerner. Conforto knew there was a chance his name might be called, but Counsell did not make that decision until the last second.
Once the Cubs tied the game, Counsell opted for Conforto over letting Shaw hit.
“You just kind of try to convince yourself you’re going to be the guy in that spot,” Conforto said. “But it’s up to Counse what he wants in whatever moment. Say Nico walks, the situation calls for something different. He’s going to do what he feels like is best for the team. He made a late switch there.”
Conforto worked the count full and pounced on a 94.1 mph fastball from Pagán that was elevated and away, but caught enough of the zone. The veteran walked out of the box with the confidence of someone who knew he got all of it.
“The flags were friendly,” Conforto said. “That’s a swing that I’ve been looking for for a couple years.”
Crow-Armstrong was in awe.
“It’s super, freaking cool,” he said, “when somebody can just absolutely end a baseball game in that sort of way, after having to be ready each time that there may be a pinch-hit opportunity. … That was a pretty cool Monday.”