Monday night was a good night for the Chicago Cubs, as they blasted the Pittsburgh Pirates 18-8. Chicago won for the fourth time in five games, improving to 66-66 and remaining 5 ½ games behind the Atlanta Braves for the third and final National League Wild Card spot.
The 18 runs were a season-high and their eight stolen bases were the most for any Cubs team in more than a century. The last time the Cubs stole eight bases was in 1913 when there were only 48 states in the union and the New York Yankees were in their inaugural season.
Chicago is the first team to score at least 18 runs and steal eight or more bases in a game since the New York Giants did so on June 20, 1912, per OptaSTATS.
Rookie center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong had a season-high three steals for Chicago, giving him 26 in 93 games. Crow-Armstrong has been caught stealing only once this season.
“I think we’ve done a good job all year of going into it with the mindset of being aggressive on the bases,” Crow-Armstrong said. “Against these guys, we’ve had a pretty good plan and you saw it today because guys were very aggressive.”
Ian Happ (2), Nico Hoerner (1), Cody Bellinger (1), and Seiya Suzuki (1) did their part to scorch the basepaths as well.
The Cubs are already ahead of last season’s pace when they finished with 140 stolen bases during the regular season. They average .909 steals per game, up from their .864 mark a season ago. Chicago ranks eighth in Major League Baseball with 120 steals in 132 games and five players have at least 10 stolen bases.
Chicago, 15-8 since July 31, has turned things around after falling as many as nine games under .500 before the All-Star break
