CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a two-run shot to become the first Cubs player with 30 homers, 30 doubles and 30 stolen bases in a season, Seiya Suzuki iced the game with a grand slam and Chicago pounded the St. Cardinals 12-1 on Friday to close in on the top National League wild card.<\/p>\n
Michael Busch hit his team-leading 32nd homer and had two RBIs as the playoff-bound Cubs won for just the second time in eight games and trimmed their magic number to one for securing home-field advantage in their opening-round playoff series against San Diego. Game 1 of that series is Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Suzuki\u2019s second career grand slam, capping Chicago\u2019s seven-run seventh, made him the third Cub with 30 homers this season. Nico Hoerner also went deep.<\/p>\n
Colin Rea (11-7) allowed two hits in 5 2\/3 scoreless innings, striking out seven. Four relievers followed to complete a five-hitter.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old Crow-Armstrong joined Sammy Sosa as the second Cub to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases. He casually tossed his bat after hitting a high curveball from Miles Mikolas (8-11) 396 feet into the right-center bleachers to give Chicago a 3-0 lead in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Hoerner hit a solo shot in the first off Mikolas, who allowed four runs on four hits in five innings.<\/p>\n
The Cubs reinstated slugger Kyle Tucker from the injured list (left calf). He batted fourth as the designated hitter, and singled and walked in five plate appearances.<\/p>\n
Key moment<\/p>\n
Chris Roycroft hit Crow-Armstrong with a pitch above the knee after giving up Suzuki\u2019s grand slam. Crow-Armstrong fell, but walked off the impact.<\/p>\n
Key stat<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong\u2019s homer was only his second in 29 games and third in 55. He has 35 steals and 37 doubles.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Cardinals RHP Michael McGreevy (8-3, 4.35 ERA) faces Cubs RHP Jameson Taillon (10-7, 3.78) on Saturday.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n
Matt Carlson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (AP) \u2014 Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a two-run shot to become the first Cubs player with 30 homers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-171464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}