CHICAGO — Pedro Pages wanted to avoid the tears, but he never once tried to deny the emotionally charged moment that came with his first home run in the majors.
The Cardinals’ rookie catcher entered the day with three hits in the big leagues, two of them singles. With neither the Cardinals nor the Chicago Cubs having scored in the eighth inning, Pages smacked a ball into the basket just above the wall in left field for a momentum-swinging home run. A swing he and his father will never forget.
Pages’ solo home run in the eighth inning pumped life into an offense that had been scuffling and put the Cardinals on their way to a 3-0 win over the Cubs in the first game of a three-game set at Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon.
“No, I couldn’t have drawn it up any better,†Pages said in the clubhouse after the game. “It’s something I’ve always dreamed of, obviously, as a little kid — hitting a home run in a big moment. I’m glad my first one did come out like that.
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“Just being able to do it in front of my dad that’s here this weekend for Father’s Day, my family that is here, it means a lot. There’s a lot of emotions still going through me. I’m just sitting here smiling. I don’t even know what to do with myself right now.â€
Pages’ father, Edgar, flew into Chicago Friday morning to watch his son play and spend Father’s Day weekend with their family. Pages’ sister, fiancée, his fiancée’s parents and Edgar’s wife were all in attendance with Pages’ stepsister in route and due to arrive later in the day.
“I went out there right now to say hi to them,†Pages said. “The first thing he does is give me a hug and just starts crying. I’m like, ‘Dad, please don’t cry right now. Then I started tearing up a little bit. It’s just a big moment for us. We’ve been through a lot as a family. Just being able to be here and be a part of it, it’s amazing.â€
The Cardinals (34-34) climbed back to .500 with the win, but they had to scratch and claw their way to the victory and benefited from the combination of solid defense and well-timed wind gusts in the Windy City.
Cubs starting pitcher Jordan Wicks, who made his first start since coming off the injured list with a forearm strain, left the game with two outs in the second inning due to “right oblique discomfort.â€
Normally, the left-hander’s early exit might signal an easier path for the Cardinals’ offense. However, Cubs manager Craig Counsell turned to noted Cardinals nemesis Kyle Hendricks out of the bullpen.
Hendricks, who’d been demoted from the rotation to the bullpen due to poor performance earlier this season, entered the day with a career record of 13-4 and a 2.68 ERA with a 1.068 WHIP and 4.22-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 26 appearances against the Cardinals.
Hendricks retired the first 11 batters he faced, and he allowed just two hits in 4 1/3 innings of scoreless relief. He struck out one and did not walk a batter.
Cardinals veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson held the line while the Cubs (33-37) held his club’s offense in check. Gibson (5-2) pitched seven scoreless innings and allowed just two hits. He walked one and struck out six.
“He had everything working,†Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of Gibson. “He mixed extremely well, got some very defensive swings. He could do whatever he wanted with the baseball today. So he gave us more than a shot. That was a phenomenal showing by Gibby.â€
The biggest threat to his scoreless outing came in the third inning when Cubs slugger Cody Bellinger hit a deep drive into right field. Cardinals outfielder Alec Burleson caught the ball on the warning track after he had trouble finding it in the Chicago sky.
“It was right in the sun. It was like trying to catch the moon in a solar eclipse,†Burleson said. “It was right in the sun. I couldn’t see it. I threw my glove up in the sun and I told myself I was either going to catch it, it was going to be a homer, or it was going to be a double. It was going to be one of those three options. Luckily, it just fell right into my glove.â€
The score remained 0-0 until Pages hit a 2-2 sweeper from Cubs right-hander Hayden Wesneski an estimated 363 feet. Pages fouled off the previous pitch, also a sweeper.
The Cubs threatened to take the lead in the bottom of the eighth. Gibson had thrown 88 pitches, and he’d given up just two hits. He retired the side in order in the seventh, including two strikeouts. He would have faced the Nos. 7, 8 and 9 hitters in the Cubs lineup in the eighth.
The ninth hitter, Miguel Amaya had one of the two hits against Gibson and lined out on a scorcher up the middle in another at-bat. Marmol knew he had trusted left-handed reliever JoJo Romero ready to pitch if needed, but Marmol also knew that whoever started the inning would have to get through Amaya before they got to a left-handed “lane†or hitters at the top of the Cubs’ lineup.
With the one-run lead providing the slimmest of margins to operate within, Marmol chose to give rookie reliever Ryan Fernandez a clean inning to start the eighth.
Fernandez gave up a leadoff single to Michael Busch. Pinch runner Pete Crow-Armstrong stole second base, and then advanced to third on a grounder to second base.
With one out and the infield playing in on the grass, Amaya hit a grounder sharply to second baseman Nolan Gorman, who threw home in time to cut down Crow-Armstrong with a good tag from Pages for the second out of the inning.
“We made the decision to just give Fernandez the clean inning, and thankfully Gorman came through there and Fernandez made his pitches in order for that to happen. Bottom of the lineup there, you can easily let (Gibson) face those three guys. I felt like he did his job.â€
With Amaya on first, Marmol called upon Romero for that lefty lane of hitters. Counsell countered with right-handed hitting Patrick Wisdom as a pinch hitter. Wisdom blasted a 3-0 sinker left over the heart of the plate to left field. The exit velocity on the drive registered at 111 mph.
The ball traveled to the warning track in the left field corner, but the wind kept it from getting over the wall and Brendan Donovan caught the ball for the final out of the inning, which prompted Wisdom to put his hands on his head in shock as he reached first base.
The Cardinals tacked two runs onto their lead in the ninth thanks to a leadoff double by Nolan Arenado, an RBI double by Ivan Herrera and an RBI single by Dylan Carlson.
Closer Ryan Helsley came out of the bullpen and recorded his MLB-leading 23rd save of the season. The tying run came to the plate after a pair of walks by Helsley, but he struck out Nico Hoerner to end the game.
The Cardinals were last at .500 when they won the finale of their series in Cincinnati to go to 27-27 on May 29.
“I think it’s a benchmark and it’s a step along the way,†Gibson said. “We know that other than the few division leaders that have got five or six game leads, the rest of the NL is kind of stacked up right there within three or four games.
“Yeah, we’d obviously love to be ahead in our division and five games up instead of five or six down, but we feel like we’re putting ourselves in a pretty good spot right now in the middle of June to play really good baseball, win a couple series in a row and see where we’re at at the end of June. Hopefully, we’re four or five above .500 and playing really well.â€