CHICAGO — When Kwang Hyun Kim plotted his approach against San Francisco as a way to lift the Cardinals from a lost series in Denver, he said he “focused on strikeouts.”
He may not have had the best audience for such an attempt as the eager, aggressive Giants hunted strikes and instead of collecting strikeouts, Kim did something even more valuable – he managed innings, in bulk. The lefty finished with seven brisk, efficient, shutout innings and a feel for his slider and style to take into his next start.
This time he got strikeouts.
Kim struck out seven in six shutout innings as the Cardinals unloaded through the rain on the rival Cubs for a 6-0 victory Saturday night at Wrigley Field. Paul Goldschmidt, Tommy Edman, and Paul DeJong hit home runs in the fifth inning to extend a lead that Kim protected for the majority of his start. Given a 1-0 lead after the top of the first, Kim (4-5) never allowed a Cub to reach third base.
The loss, the Cubs’ 13th in their past 15 games, assured that they, like the Cardinals, will not reach the All-Star break with a winning record. The two teams remain deadlocked at 44-46 with four games coming in a week at Busch Stadium. With Adam Wainwright set to start Sunday, the Cardinals will try to win their second consecutive road series — something they have not done since mid-May and haven’t done once this season on the same trip.
Both the Cardinals and Cubs are looking up at Milwaukee and looking for a compass for the remainder of the season, and the Cubs’ front office has been candid about considering an end to the core that won the 2016 World Series. The Cardinals, riddled with injuries to the rotation, talk instead of being a strong second-half team, possibly adding an arm via trade, and panning for any sort of sparkly optimism they can find in the current of July.
Sometimes it’s pyrite. Sometimes it’s gold.
Recently, it’s Goldschmidt.
A convergence of upward, encouraging trends the Cardinals can cling to have met them at the end of this three-city, 10-game road trip. The experienced starter they need to steady the rotation has in Kim. The MVP-caliber middle-order hitter who can radiate consistency around him is warming.
Goldschmidt walked and scored in the first inning. He singled to lead off the third, and then homered on a 2-0 pitch to start the fifth. The multi-hit game was his third of the road trip and fourth of the month. Goldschmidt has at least a hit in every game on the road trip that started July 1. The Cardinals’ first baseman brought a .378 average over the previous nine games into Saturday’s at Wrigley. The homer was his second of the stretch.
Kim’s six scoreless innings Saturday give the lefty 13 consecutive to close the first half — and all 13 came on this road trip. He has chipped his ERA down from 4.05 at the start of June to 3.11 as the All-Star break arrives. On the final year of his two-year contact with the Cardinals, Kim could play two roles for the Cardinals — either as an indicator of staying the course or a chip to play in the trade market hungry for starting pitchers.
Perhaps as aggressive as the Giants were against Kim but not as effective making contact, the Cubs swung and missed 14 times in Kim’s six innings, according to Baseball Savant. Seven of those came on the change-up. The Cardinals’ lefty had his pitches veering and sliding and slipping and dropping, darting around like hummingbirds while keeping them in that 80-mph to 89-mph range.
“He can impose his will on them,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said before the start about Kim’s strikeout-seeking mentality. “His stuff was as good as we’ve seen all year (in San Francisco). That helps. He was really getting after it. In the zone. Pound the zone. A lot of late movement. Doing what he wants to got a lot of quick outs and soft outs.”
Kim held tight to a one-run lead until the Cardinals greeted each of the Cubs’ relievers in the fifth inning with a home run to widen the game.
Goldschmidt started the five-run fifth-inning rally with a solo home run on the third pitch he saw from starter Zach Davies. Goldschmidt’s 13th homer of the season cleared the bleachers in left field and carried to Waveland Avenue.
An infield single by Tyler O’Neill chased Davies from the game about the same time the right-hander still had a no-hitter going the last time he faced the Cardinals at Wrigley. Almost a month ago, the Cardinals visited and Davies faced the minimum through five and vexed the Cardinals so for 6 2/3 shutout innings. The Cardinals' two walks and Matt Carpenter’s two-out single into a 1-0 lead in the first inning to break Davies’ hold, and by the fifth, while the forecasted drizzle still fell, on came the Cardinals’ downpour.
After O’Neill’s single, lefty Adam Morgan entered.
Carpenter was lifted for pinch-hitter Edman, a switch hitter who could greet Morgan with a left-handed swing.
Edman turned on the sixth pitch Morgan threw for a two-run homer.
Morgan lasted two more batters, by rule.
Reliever Dan Winkler entered.
Paul DeJong’s homer exited.
The Cardinals shortstop launched the second pitch Winkler threw into the basket above the ivy of center field. DeJong’s 12th homer of the season put the Cardinals ahead 6-0 and gave them their first three-homer inning since September 2020, and their first at Wrigley Field since 2006. That August day, in the seventh inning of a game they’d win 11-3 to against the Cubs, the future 83-win club and World Series champions got home runs from Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Ronnie Belliard.
Saturday’s fifth was the fourth time since 1971 that the Cardinals have hit three home runs in a single inning at Wrigley Field.
In the win, catcher Yadier Molina got his 2,064 hit as a Cardinal to move ahead of Enos Slaughter in the franchise totals. He also caught his 145th shutout.
