Wednesday night’s game against the Phillies wasn’t going so well for the Cubs. Starter Jose Quintana pitched well, but exited with two runners on base and two outs in the top of the sixth inning with his team leading 3-0. Steve Cishek, who relieved Quintana, served up a game-tying three-run home run to Aaron Altherr on the first pitch he threw. The Phillies then broke the 3-3 tie in the top of the ninth when Dylan Cozens ripped an opposite-field two-run homer for his first dinger at the big league level.
Seranthony Dominguez, who pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the eighth and drew a walk in the top of the ninth, came back out for the bottom half of the ninth. He entered the evening not having experienced any adversity in the majors since debuting on May 7, giving up no runs on two hits with no walks and 16 strikeouts in 14 2/3 innings. The Cubs finally got to Dominguez as Kyle Schwarber drew a four-pitch walk to begin the frame and Albert Almora hit a line drive single to center field with one out.
Phillies manager Gabe Kapler chose to bring in lefty Adam Morgan to see his way out of trouble. However, he walked Ian Happ to load the bases. He saw light at the end of the double, getting Ben Zobrist to ground into a 1-2 force out at home plate, bringing up Jason Heyward for the dreaded lefty-on-lefty matchup. In his career, Heyward had a .642 OPS against lefties compared to .801 against righties. So of course Heyward hit a two-out, walk-off grand slam to give the Cubs the 7-5 victory.
That was grand! pic.twitter.com/GpjhXRcwPf
— Cubs Talk (@NBCSCubs) June 7, 2018
As Christopher Kamka of NBC Sports Chicago notes, Heyward is the first player to hit a walk-off grand slam when his team was trailing since Ron Santo on September 25, 1968.
