Cubs: 3 oddities from Friday’s series opener against the Cardinals

There’s always a little bit extra on each matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs. A lot of history, plenty of trash talking, great baseball and memorable moments are all at play every time these teams meet.

Heading into Sunday night’s matchup, the Cubs remain a few games behind the Cardinals for the top spot in the NL Central. Neither team has seem to play their best thus far into the season, but the Cubs and Cardinals have been hitting their stride as the season goes on.

Friday night in St. Louis was filled with a great performance from Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks, who has not been himself thus far. Of course, that’s not to mention a 12-run outburst from the bats. Chicago got the job done and inched their way closer to the Cards with a final score of 12-3.

Throughout this contest their were some interesting game-altering details that took place. The final score doesn’t tell the full story, as this game was close until the late innings. In this piece, i’m going to break down some key points in this Cubs victory.

Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez’ lack of control at play

Martinez has had his good games and bad games over the course of this season. To be fair, you can chalk up his start against the Cubs on Friday night as a decent outing that was blown open by the Cardinals bullpen. However, his control was not on point as he proceeded to hit three batters over the course of the fourth and fifth innings.

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In the fourth, the St. Louis right-hander made quick work of the first two batters on fewer than six pitches. Then, Martinez hit Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo to put a runner on with two outs. Next batter was shortstop Javier Baez who was uncharacteristically patient and took a walk. That was super impressive from Baez as he is one of the best bad ball hitters in the game and is prone to swinging at balls that are heading toward the broadcast booth.

Next to bat was center fielder Ian Happ. Happ takes a ball, digs in for pitch number two and couldn’t get out of the way of a ball that was thrown behind him. After the two hit batters and walk, the bases are juiced with two outs. This prompts a mound visit from Yadier Molina, as David Bote digs and takes some practice cuts. Impressively, Martinez makes quick work of Bote and gets out of the bases loaded jam, leaving Cubs fans frustrated.

A similar story occurred in the fifth inning for Martinez. The Cubs put a nice inning together and scored a run after a Hoerner double and a Pederson sacrifice fly. It seemed that the damage was done as the bases cleared and there were two outs. MVP candidate Kris Bryant steps in and takes a pitch in the leg. Then Contreras comes up and grounds out to second to end the inning. It was strange because Martinez seemed to be able to work his way out both scenarios in which he hit batters with two outs.

Cubs: Two errors in the same inning from two unlikely people

The seventh and eighth innings featured huge offensive frames that blew the game wide open. The Cubs got into St. Louis’ bullpen and never looked back.

The seventh inning also featured an error from the Cardinals’ nine-time Gold Glove catcher Yadier Molina on a throw to third base to try and catch Hoerner napping that got by Nolan Arenado and led to a run with no outs.

This was Molina’s first error on the season. Hoerner’s alert base running ensured the Cubs capitalized on the Molina error and gave the North Siders the lead with their third run of the ball game. Good thing too because it doesn’t happen very often that the Cardinals backstop makes a mistake behind the plate.

The eighth inning also gave us an error from the Cardinals’ eight-time Gold Glove third baseman that somewhat kickstarted the team’s big eighth inning. Arenado is tied with Scott Rolen for the third-most Gold Gloves by a third baseman in Major League history, trailing only Brooks Robinson (16) and Mike Schmidt (10). Even the best in the world can make a mistake. Funny that the errors from these two legends occurred in the same game in back-to-back innings.