The Cubs could not have scripted a louder way to open their series with the Brewers.
Chicago rolled to a 17-3 win Monday night at a sold-out Wrigley Field, and the story of the game was as simple as it was outrageous: nine Cubs home runs, a dominant outing from Clay Holmes, and a Milwaukee bullpen plan that turned the night into a full-blown blowout.
The homer barrage set a franchise record. Tyrone Taylor, Nico Hoerner, Seiya Suzuki, Carson Kelly, Matt Shaw, Michael Conforto and Alex Bregman all left the yard, with Bregman doing the most damage by going deep three times.
The Cubs’ nine-homer outburst also pushed them to 62 home runs in August, tying the NL record the Atlanta Braves set in 2023. Chicago now leads MLB with 195 home runs.
Taylor’s two-run blast was his first homer as a Cub and his first since Aug. 1.
Hoerner followed by going back-to-back with a shot to left-center, and he’s now within two homers of matching his career high of 10. Bregman, meanwhile, turned in his second three-homer game of the season and became the first Cub with multiple three-homer games in a season since Aramis Ramirez in 2004.
While the offense kept unloading, Holmes handled the other side of the equation. The right-hander threw six shutout innings and struck out eight, giving the Cubs exactly the kind of stability they needed against the Brewers. Since arriving from the New York Mets at the deadline, Holmes has allowed just one earned run in his last four starts and owns a 1.96 ERA over 29 innings in Cubs colors.
Milwaukee’s night took a strange turn when manager Pat Murphy pulled his real pitcher in the seventh inning and handed the ball to first baseman Andrew Vaughn. Vaughn was asked to cover six outs and ended up working two innings, allowing seven earned runs on nine hits, with three home runs and three walks.
The move let the Brewers preserve the rest of their bullpen for the final three games of the series, but it also left Vaughn with more innings than Milwaukee’s two relievers who actually entered the game. Chad Patrick threw 1.1 innings, and DL Hall lasted one inning.
The Cubs, for their part, didn’t need much beyond Holmes to finish the job. Ryan Rolison and Colin Rea handled the remaining outs, and Chicago walked away with a win that was as emphatic as the final score suggested.
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