Cubs Twitter had a good weekend, and it started before first pitch on Sunday. The pregame vibe was simple: bet on Nico Hoerner staying hot and the Cubs taking care of business against Minnesota.
Early Cubs game today I like them to win and Nico Hoerner to stay hot and get on base. -125 on @DKSports #DKPartner
That read on Hoerner wasn't a hunch. He'd been buried in a slump that stretched nearly 3 months, scuffling to a 5-for-36 start to July before something clicked against the Twins. Over the series he went 8-for-13 with 5 RBI, numbers that look more like a video game save file than a real week of baseball. Saturday he tied a career high with 4 hits in a 6-2 win. Sunday he just kept going.
The Cubs turned Sunday's series finale into a laugher early, and the bottom of the third is where it got out of hand. A rally that started with 2 on and nobody feeling great about it turned into a full-blown blowout inning, with runners crossing the plate in bunches at Wrigley.
MR. RISPY BRINGS EVERYBODY HOME!!!
Right in the middle of that inning was Hoerner, doing exactly what the pregame bet said he would. The scoreboard tells the story better than words can — Cubs 3, then suddenly Cubs 6, all inside the same frame, with Hoerner at the plate driving the swing.
NICO GETS EVERYBODY HOME
The final was 10-1, the kind of laugher that turns a series into a statement. After dropping the opener 5-2, the Cubs won the last 2 games comfortably and took the series, with Matthew Boyd's Saturday start and Sunday's third-inning explosion doing the heavy lifting. For a team that needed its second baseman to remember how to hit, this was about as loud a reminder as it gets.
Slumps happen to everybody, even a guy who's a career .280-ish hitter with a Gold Glove pedigree. What matters now is whether this was one hot series or the start of Hoerner actually being Hoerner again for the stretch run. If the second half looks anything like this weekend, the Cubs' lineup just got a lot scarier.