CHICAGO — A team that began the month inviting questions about an uncertain future is finishing September by making uncanny history.
The Cardinals won their club-record 15th consecutive game by rallying to overpower and overwhelm the Cubs, 8-5, on Saturday at Wrigley Field. In 130 years of professional baseball in the National League, no Cardinals team had won more than 14 consecutive games until the 2021 team went from the fringe of the postseason race to nearly tying up the wild-card berth as the undisputed hottest team in baseball.
The 15 consecutive wins snaps the previous high set in 1935.
Goodbye Gas House Gang.
Hello Mash House Gang.
The Cardinals socked three homers Saturday and have 11 in the weekend series at Wrigley. Harrison Bader’s solo homer in the second started the scoring, his single in the seventh spurred the decisive rally, and Paul DeJong’s two-run homer in the ninth was the exclamation point on a history-making afternoon for the boys in victory blue.
The win featured so much of what the Cardinals have done well in the past weeks — sublime defense, power, and clever baserunning.
And, almost poetically, a key double play that got the whole team involved.
The Cardinals upended the Cubs’ lead in the top of the seventh with an inning geared around one of the several hitters who has had a September revival.
Bader already had a homer, a single, and a stolen base when he came up with two runner son base in the seventh inning. Nolan Arenado hit a ball that might have left Wrigley Field if it hadn’t been hit so hard or so low, but with a superb slide it got him to second. Yadier Molina followed with a single, and Bader sparked the rally. With his third hit of the game, Bader brought home Arenado to cut the Cubs’ lead down to a run.
Rookie Lars Nootbaar, granted an encore start after his two-homer night Friday, singled home Molina for the game-tying run.
On Paul DeJong’s sacrifice fly Bader scored from third for the go-ahead run.
During the first 14 games of the winning streak, Bader had 19 hits, including 10 extra-base hits. He raised his batting average by 10 points with five hits Friday, and then filled the box score on Saturday. He had four hits, including two more for extra bases, and two steals. As if that wasn’t enough, he also got involved in a double play the infielders turned to unplug the Cubs’ threat in the eighth inning.
The Cubs got a leadoff triple to put the tying run at third base.
But that runner would get no farther. With two on, one out, and the Cubs threatening against lefty reliever T. J. McFarland, Rafael Ortega skipped a grounder to first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. The inevitable Gold Glove-winner this season, Goldschmidt zipped a strike to Molina at the plate to catch the Cubs runner between third and home. Once that tag was applied, the Cardinals saw that the other two Cubs were also caught between bases. They had failed to commit and were now caught.
Then Arenado, who applied the tag for the first out, threw to Tommy Edman. Molina picked up the other side of the rundown, and then Bader hopped in for his turn near second.
He threw to DeJong for the tag and the second out.
That goes in the scorebook as a 3-2-5-4-2-8-6 double play.
During their two weeks without losing, the Cardinals have had to showcase various ways they could win. They did it with defense in Queens. They did it with steals in Milwaukee. They’ve done it with power at Wrigley. Their preferred approach was to get an early lead, in the first inning if possible. If that didn’t work out, then they’d find a way to overcome a deficit, even if it swells to five runs as it did earlier in the streak at Milwaukee.
On Saturday, they needed a blend.
They got the early lead. They still needed the late rally.
Bader’s second homer in as many games and fifth of the month staked the Cardinals to an early 1-0 lead. It didn’t last, so they had to rally.
Tyler O’Neill’s 11th homer of September tied the game in the fourth.
That tie, like the lead, did not last.
Back at Wrigley with his second team this season, Jon Lester allowed four runs, including one unearned run. Forever beloved on the north side for his role with the 2016 World Series championship team and that Cubs core, Lester won his 200th career game earlier in the Cardinals’ winning streak and Saturday was his first start since and his first career start as an archrival. He never threw in pinstripes at Fenway, but did wear feathers to the mound at Wrigley. It took Lester eight pitches to complete a perfect first inning. The game started to fray from there. A double play got him out of trouble in the second. A double got him back in it in the third.
Three hits, including a double from his former catcher Willson Contreras, laced Lester with two runs and gave the Cubs their first lead of the game.
They stacked on two runs in the fourth inning, and more than an hour before the Cardinals had a chance to make team history they already had major-league history.
With help from an infield error, the Cubs snapped the 2-2 tie with Contreras’ RBI single. That loaded the bases. Lester then walked Ian Happ to force home the second run of the inning. The bases-loaded was a first for the Cardinals in about a month, but it was enough to set the record. The Cardinals have walked in a run 29 times this season, surpassing the previous high for the lowest of stats. Seattle had 28 in 1999 and had the record for most since 1961.
The fourth inning was a jumble of troubles for Lester from an excuse-swing single to the error on a bunt and then the bases-loaded walk.
Still, in the top of the fifth with a runner in scoring position, Lester hit for himself. The Cardinals bullpen got used but not exhausted in Friday’s doubleheader. It was down an arm with Justin Miller on the injured list but had Kwang Hyun Kim for length. The decision to have Lester bat took on a new hue in the bottom of the fifth when something about Lester’s delivery or drifting stuff prompted a meeting on the mound with his manager, trainer, and teammates.
Manager Mike Shildt and Lester had what passes for a long conversation in these moments, and by its ending Lester had lobbied to remain in the game.
He struck out the next batter on a foul tip — and his outing was over.
Lester allowed the four runs on eight hits and three walks. He struck out six, and when he turned the final four innings of the game over to the bullpen did so with a two-run deficit.
That was history within three innings.
