Ian Happ, the longest-tenured Chicago Cubs player, came into Thursday with only two hits this postseason.
His third delivered a three-run home run in the bottom of the first inning at Wrigley Field, where his Cubs won an elimination game for the second day in a row.
As was the case in NLDS Game 3, a rush of first-inning runs was all Chicago needed in Game 4. But this time, the Cubs added three insurance runs. Those were the cherries on top of their surgical pitching performance. Matthew Boyd got a standing ovation after his 4 2/3 innings of shutout ball, and his relievers finished off a 6-0 Chicago victory.
With that, the Cubs will head back up I-94 to Milwaukee for a winner-take-all Game 5 on Saturday, with a trip to the NLCS on the line.
In Game 4, Boyd set the tone on the mound with three quick outs after walking Christian Yelich to lead off. In his outing, the southpaw struck out six and allowed just two hits.
Freddy Peralta also collected six Ks, but he didn’t get out of the first inning unscathed. Peralta — who was jeered with “Freddy” chants between pitches — gave up a single to Nico Hoerner, a four-pitch walk to Kyle Tucker and the three-run dinger to Happ.
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The Brewers threatened in the top of the fifth, when Sal Frelick doubled to right and Blake Perkins drew a walk. A perfectly placed Joey Ortiz bunt then advanced Frelick to third and Perkins to second. Milwaukee had two runners in scoring position with only one out and the top of its lineup ready to go.
Boyd buckled down and struck out Yelich for the second out. In came Daniel Palencia, whose first pitch to Jackson Chourio was popped up to short for the final out of the inning. In Game 2, Palencia allowed a three-run homer to Chourio, but this time around, the righty hurler won the matchup, preserving Chicago’s 3-0 advantage.
The Cubs scored again in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, tacking on a run each time.
In the sixth, Matt Shaw drove in the first of those runs, going low to get a curveball from Brewers lefty Aaron Ashby and poking a single to center that scored Carson Kelly.
Kyle Tucker deposited a solo home run in the seventh. And in the eighth, Michael Busch blasted his fourth home run of this postseason and third of this series.
That gave the Cubs three big flies on the night. They nearly had four, but Kelly’s deep pull to left field in the seventh didn’t quite squeeze by the foul pole — if it had, he would’ve scored two runs.
Across Game 4, Chicago’s five pitchers teamed up to concede just three hits to a Brewers team that has now lost five straight potential clinchers, dating to Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS.
With all the pressure on them entering Game 5 on Saturday, their 97-win season is suddenly hanging in the balance.
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