Cubs overcome pesky Pirates in 11 innings

Who among us has not uttered the phrase at some point this year: “This is the most 2020 thing, ever.”

Consider this the Cubs version. In normal times, in normal seasons, a Major League team would never fly to a city on the same day they’re to play a game. But the protocols are different this year, and so, on Tuesday morning, sometime shortly after sunrise, the members of the Cubs traveling party arose in Chicago to begin their sojourn to Pittsburgh.

And of course their game that night at PNC Park would take more than five hours to complete, include a 71-minute rain delay and last 11 innings.

Because 2020. Obviously.

“The real credit here should go to these guys that woke up at seven o'clock this morning for an eight o'clock bus,” manager David Ross said, well after midnight Eastern time -- technically the next day. “There's not going to be any kind of score or any stat.”

Well, there was one score -- the only one that mattered. The Cubs won, 8-7, as the beneficiaries of being better at exploiting the extra-inning automatic runner rule than their opponents, the Pirates.

? Box score

Because 2020. Obviously.

Some wins are more graceful than others. Mark this one down as one that the Cubs will gladly take, and then would probably prefer to move on from -- after a nap.

“I was up with my alarm at 6:45 this morning,” Ian Happ said. “So I’ve been awake for a while.”

Earlier in the evening, the pace of the game was actually moving quite nicely. Happ, whom Ross said will not relinquish his spot at the top of the order, even with the return of Kris Bryant from the injured list, led off the game with his 10th homer of the season.

It was also the 60th of Happ’s career, which set a Cubs mark for the most long balls by a switch-hitter. Happ passed Augie Galan, who had 59 homers during his Cubs tenure from 1934-41.

But later, things got muddled, and muddy. The Cubs were ahead 6-5 in the middle of the eighth inning when the skies opened -- an occurrence not uncommon for Pittsburgh this time of year. After the lengthy rain delay, the Cubs needed only six outs to seal a win over the team with the fewest victories in the National League. The win eventually happened. But it took longer than expected.

Rookie third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, making his big league debut in this game, was the first player to bat after the delay. He offered at the third pitch from Cubs reliever Dan Winkler and sent the ball 410 feet over center field, tying the game at 6.

The rain never seemed to fully stop while the teams slogged through extra innings. Three Cubs relievers had the unenviable task of opening their innings with a runner, to no fault of their own, already on second base. Jeremy Jeffress, who struck out two over 1 2/3 scoreless frames, ended up with the win, following Happ’s run-scoring single in the top half of the 11th inning.

“That was a game that it's easy to lock down and get away from you, when things kind of go sideways in the middle,” Happ said. “With the rain delay, and that [Hayes] homer coming back, and it’s still pouring out there. There's a lot of factors in that game and for us to persevere ... to keep that thing close, and just for us to be able to grind through that and get a win that was huge.”

As the old saying goes, if you’re going to be at the ballpark that long, you might as well win it.

“It's been a really long day,” Ross said. “And the fact they fought to the end and to come out and win that game, score lots of runs and overcome some adversity, and a rain delay … it was just a long day. That's a character win for me. It tells you a lot about this group.”

Because 2020. Obviously.