Last August 4 Jon Lester told a joke of the Cubs secret on how they succeeded over St. Louis Cardinals for 11 innings. "Just put (John) Lackey in the bullpen and let him warm up," Lester quipped as the Cubs would have needed Lackey, who has a 9-7 record in 23 starts, to pitch had Anthony Rizzo not drawn a bases-loaded walk with two out to score Willson Contreras with the winning run off left-hander Zach Duke.
Their success led to 10 winning games - its the longest stroke of winning since their 12 consecutive wins from May 19 up to June 2 of 2001. Importantly, this winning stretch them and leading on a season high of 13 games having 49 left.
While the Cardinals now has no slugger after Matt Holliday injured his right hand during the tenth inning. He suffered a broken hand when it was hit by a pitch from the Cubs pitcher Mike Montgomery. It was Montgomery's first pitch since July 31 and he pitched two scoreless inning in order to win.
The last appearance of Montgomery happened at the beginning of their winning streak, wherein they rally to the deficit of 6-0 and won due to squeeze bunt made by Jon Lester, the pinch hitter, he began the game on Thursday
"We have a walk-off walk now, a (walk-off) wild pitch and bunt by (Lester)," Rizzo said. "It's one of those things where it's going our way, and we want it to go our way." Let the game go its way with different techniques.
The Cubs now are considering starting Montgomery to one of their games in Tuesday's 2 games versus Milwaukee Brewers. He's one of the reasons the team succeeded in the past 10 games. According to Maddon, they are getting a good mileage of Montgomery these days, who praise Justin Grimm throwing 8 scoreless games and extends his goalless streak into twelve back-to-back appearances.
