Cubs Batter KC 10-2, Three Home Runs Seal It
Chicago sent ten runs across the plate against Kansas City on Sunday, with Ian Happ, Miguel Amaya, and Starling Marte all going deep in an 10-2 Cubs romp. Matthew Boyd needed just 7.0 innings to earn the win, surrendering only 2 earned runs while the Cubs offense made Randy Dobnak's afternoon a short one.
Chicago wasted no time. Conforto hit a sacrifice fly to left in the first inning, scoring Busch for an early 1-0 lead. The Cubs came back in the third and piled on — Conforto singled to center to score Busch again, then Hoerner followed with a single to center that plated Happ, pushing the lead to 3-0. Bregman extended it to 4-0 in the fourth with a single to left that scored Crow-Armstrong. Dobnak was done after five innings, having allowed 10 hits and 4 earned runs. That's a tough line to recover from.
Kansas City's best moment — and really its only moment — came in the bottom of the fourth. Marte launched a 413-foot home run to left, scoring Perez and cutting the deficit to 4-2. The win probability swung from 9% to 20% for the Royals on that swing, which tells you everything you need to know about how lopsided this game looked from the jump. It looks like that was as close as KC was ever going to get.
Chicago answered immediately and emphatically. Bregman singled to center in the sixth to score Crow-Armstrong, then Happ crushed a 401-foot home run to right that plated Bregman and pushed the lead to 7-2. The story of the night was the seventh inning, when Amaya put the game completely out of reach with a 388-foot three-run shot to left, scoring Hoerner and Swanson to make it 10-2. Amaya finished 2-for-5 with 3 RBI and a run scored. Bregman went 3-for-6 with 2 RBI. Busch scored twice without recording an RBI, appearing to serve as the table-setter this lineup needed at the top. Boyd was efficient and clean enough through seven innings — 5 hits, 3 walks, 3 strikeouts — to hand a comfortable lead to the bullpen, where Zeferjahn tossed a scoreless inning with 2 strikeouts. This was a thorough, professional dismantling.