For about 24 hours, the Cubs offense looked cooked. Shota Imanaga got rocked, Nelson Velazquez of all people undid an Ian Happ early cushion with a 411-foot tying blast, and Cubs Twitter spent the night staring at the ceiling wondering what happened to the team that was supposed to bully the NL Central. Then they showed up in St. Louis the next night and remembered the bats exist.
Pete Crow-Armstrong's 7th of the year lands in the tarped-off upper deck off Gordon Graceffo to push the lead to 4-1.
That's PCA's 7th, a solo shot in the top of the 8th into the section at Busch that's literally covered up because nobody sits there. There is no more disrespectful place in the National League to deposit a baseball. Graceffo's reaction tells the whole story — he knew it the second it left the bat, and the Cubs dugout knew the night was effectively over.
Steven Cheah sends PCA off with the appropriate amount of caps lock.
The real winner here, beyond the standings, is anybody who tailed the Trust The Data card. The play needed Cubs over 0.5 homers and Bregman to pick up a hit — Bregman knocked one in his first at-bat, PCA punched the homer leg in with the tarp shot, and the ticket cashed before the 9th even started. Even-money parlays don't usually go this smoothly.
The cashed Cubs prop ticket — Bregman's 1st-AB hit plus PCA's tarp ball did the work.
All of this comes about 12 hours after the same Cubs offense was getting bodied and Imanaga was being compared to Goofy dodging a meatball in a Disney Junior cartoon. One good night doesn't erase the Velazquez homer or the Shota meltdown, but it does shut up the timeline for an evening — and gives Cheah license to break out the 'bats are back' bit without it being sarcasm for once.
Cheah's recurring 'bats are back' bit, normally deployed sarcastically over the Wrigley L flag.
4-1 Cubs in St. Louis with PCA mashing, Bregman doing Bregman things, and the prop bettors paid. Bank the night, worry about Shota tomorrow.