The Cubs keep stacking wins, and Tuesday night brought another clean one for a club that now sits a season-high 20 games over .500 with 42 games left.
Chicago beat the Washington Nationals 8-6, a game that had plenty of swing in it but ended with the Cubs doing enough in the middle and late innings to keep control. Both teams hit three homers, the Cubs scored in five straight innings, and they erased an early 3-1 deficit after Washington jumped ahead in the second.
Pete Crow-Armstrong helped turn the tone almost immediately. After CJ Abrams opened the game with a two-run homer in the bottom of the first, Crow-Armstrong answered with a massive solo shot in the top of the third. That blast - his 27th of the year - came off a Jake Irvin fastball and landed in the third level of seats at Nationals Park, cutting the gap to 3-2.
Chicago kept chipping away from there. Alex Bregman homered in the top of the seventh for his 13th of the season, and Seiya Suzuki followed with his 20th, pushing the Cubs ahead 8-4.
Shota Imanaga was tagged for all three Washington homers and lasted 4.2 innings, but he did enough to keep the damage from getting out of hand. The Nationals’ other two home runs were solo shots, and Imanaga left with the Cubs in front 6-3 in the bottom of the fifth. That mattered, because it gave Chicago room to keep working rather than chasing the game all night.
Washington still made it uncomfortable late. The Nationals, who entered with the league’s top run-scoring offense, added two more runs in the eighth and brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth. But the Cubs had already built enough cushion, and the bullpen helped close the door.
That relief group has been settling in lately. Ryan Rolison, Trent Thornton, and Jacob Webb combined to hold Washington to two hits, no runs, and five strikeouts over 3.2 innings.
Newcomer Ryan Zeferjahn had a rougher stretch, allowing the two other Nationals runs after five consecutive hard-hit balls, but the rest of the bullpen covered for him. Webb finished it off with a four-out save.
"He's been nails. Those four-out saves are tough ... that's a well-earned save and Jacob's done a heck of a job."Craig Counsell on Jacob Webb 🔥 pic.twitter.com/lCaBSuNzll
The win also trimmed Chicago’s gap in the NL Central to 4.5 games behind the Brewers, while the Cubs’ lead for the top Wild Card spot moved to 6.5 games. They’ve now won eight of their last 10, a stretch that has them in strong position heading deeper into August.
There’s more pitching help on the way, too. The Cubs already added Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes at the trade deadline, and Edward Cabrera is close to joining the mix after throwing 5 no-hit innings in a rehab start for Double-A Knoxville. He allowed no hits, no runs and one walk while striking out seven.
Cabrera’s return gives Craig Counsell another layer of flexibility. Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said last week the plan was to build up Cabrera’s pitch count, so he is expected to factor into the rotation. Ben Brown is also back to his normal throwing routine and working out at the Cubs’ Arizona complex, and Shelby Miller made his first rehab outing Sunday.
For a team that was short on options not long ago, that’s a major shift. Now the Cubs have arms coming back, bullpen pieces settling in, and enough depth to keep making noise down the stretch.
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