Christopher Morel delivered a walk-off sacrifice fly in the 10th inning to give the Chicago Cubs a 4-3 victory over the visiting Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday night.
After Milwaukee’s Jace Peterson was thrown out at the plate by Chicago second baseman Nick Madrigal in the top of the 10th, Morel flied out deep enough to left field off Hoby Milner (2-1) to knock in Jason Heyward from third.
The Cubs earned their second straight win and gained a four-game series split with the NL Central-leading Brewers. Willson Contreras had two hits with an RBI for Chicago, which won back-to-back home games for the first time since May 16-17.
Peterson recorded two doubles, a triple with an RBI for Milwaukee, which finished 6-5 on an 11-game trip.
Making his major league debut, the Brewers’ Jason Alexander endured a rough first inning, when he issued all three of his walks and allowed two runs. However, he settled down, retired nine straight batters during one stretch and finished seven innings. Alexander yielded three runs and seven hits while striking out three.
Morel led off the first with a walk to extend his club record by reaching base in 15 straight games to begin his career. He moved to second on Contreras’ single and scored on catcher Omar Narvaez’s wild throw while stealing third base. Contreras later came home on Patrick Wisdom’s double-play ball to give Chicago a 2-0 edge.
Milwaukee cut the deficit in half in the third when Peterson opened with a triple and scored on Kolten Wong’s one-out single to left field. The Brewers tied it at 2-2 with Narvaez’s bloop two-out RBI single in the fourth.
The visitors went ahead in the fifth, when video replay overturned Mike Brosseau being thrown out at the plate on Peterson’s double. Chicago, though, tied it with Contreras’ RBI single in the bottom of the frame.
Kyle Hendricks allowed three runs, two earned, and six hits in five innings for the Cubs, who have split the 10 games with the Brewers this season. Mark Leiter Jr. (1-1) earned the win after pitching a scoreless top of the 10th.
–Field Level Media
