ST. LOUIS — Kyle Hendricks allowed five hits in seven shutout innings and Nico Hoerner and David Bote each drove in two runs as the Chicago Cubs extended their season-best winning streak to five games with a 5-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night.
“I was just trying to take it one pitch at a time,” Hendricks said. “You know what we’ve got coming tomorrow with the doubleheader, so it was good getting through five. We go back out for six, go back out for seven, and just try to cover a little bit to give us some room for tomorrow.”
Hendricks (2-7) didn’t allow a runner to reach second base and finished with three strikeouts and a walk. The 34-year-old right-hander has not allowed a run in 11 1/3 innings over two appearances against St. Louis this season and is 14-4 with a 2.51 ERA lifetime in 27 appearances (26 starts) versus the Cardinals.
“It’s the same uniform but different players,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “I do think there’s something to a mound that you go on and you just love throwing from that mound whether it be your home field or a road stadium that you have a lot of experience in. You’re just comfortable on that mound and you pitch so many times there it can feel like a place you’re really experienced at, and maybe that’s what Kyle’s got going here.”
The Cardinals’ Sonny Gray (9-6) allowed three runs on nine hits and struck out six in seven innings. St. Louis has dropped three straight games after winning six of its previous eight.
“I thought he did a really nice job.” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said “He used his sinker more than he has in the past. It had really good shape to it. He landed the curveball a decent amount as well. Those two pitches were good for him. The other ones were as well, but I thought he navigated that lineup well. A couple of good swings off him, but, for the most part, I thought it looked pretty good.”
Masyn Winn and Willson Contreras walked, and Paul Goldschmidt hit an RBI single in the ninth inning off Hunter Bigge to snap a streak of 32 2/3 scoreless innings by Cubs pitching.
“When you have good starting pitching, you feel like you have a chance to win every night, and you feel like you’re in every game,” Counsell said. “That’s what our starters have done all year. … That does so much for your team and gives you so much confidence when you can kind of turn the page to the next day that you’ve got somebody that can put up zeroes.”
Héctor Neris allowed a two-out walk to Nolan Arenado to load the bases before striking out Lars Nootbaar to earn his 13th save in 17 chances.
Bote hit a two-run, pinch-hit double in the eighth to extend the the Cubs’ lead to 5-0.
Ian Happ doubled in the fourth and scored on Dansby Swanson’s single to left field, giving the Cubs a 2-0 lead.
Miles Mastrobuoni singled to lead off the third, advanced to second on Pete Crow-Armstrong’s bunt single and scored on a groundout by Hoerner to give the Cubs a 1-0 lead.
Cubs reliever Luke Little departed the game in the eighth inning with right shoulder discomfort after throwing four pitches to Nootbaar.