Cubs' bats get back to 'passing the baton' in rout of O's

CHICAGO -- Cubs runs came in bunches in Friday afternoon’s 10-3 win over the Orioles at Wrigley Field.

Miguel Amaya, Dansby Swanson and Christopher Morel hit a trio of solo home runs in the third inning. Swanson and Morel went back-to-back -- marking the sixth time the Cubs have hit back-to-back dingers this season -- to give Chicago an early 3-0 lead, and they piled on insurance runs in the sixth.

In that inning, Ian Happ continued the tear he has been on since the Cubs returned home from a 10-game road trip. After pinch-hitter Mike Tauchman and Trey Mancini walked, Happ pinch-hit for Patrick Wisdom and plated them both with a single to right field. Happ has logged a hit in each of his last four games, including a home run Tuesday against the Pirates, his first homer since May 5.

Happ’s two-run single drove in the first of six runs the Cubs scored in the sixth inning. Nico Hoerner, Morel and Seiya Suzuki each chipped in RBI hits. It's the fourth straight game the Cubs have scored at least four runs in an inning, something they had not done since a stretch that ran from June 28 to July 1, 2018, against the Dodgers and Twins, per team historian Ed Hartig. The Cubs added on in the seventh on another Hoerner RBI single.

Through most of the first two months of the season, the Cubs were among the league leaders in stranding runners, and especially in scoring position. Going into Friday, the Cubs were third-highest in baseball with 7.37 stranded runners per game. But they have since improved to ninth in baseball in stranding runners in scoring position (3.59 per game), down from fourth in the league a month ago.

“All the R&D guys will tell you what the luck stats are, and I think that’s one of them,” manager David Ross said. “We were very unlucky in those moments. Luck is going to turn.”

Those struggles with getting runners across the plate earlier in the season are a part of why the Cubs are still near the bottom of their division. But an offensive performance like they had on Friday -- the lineup drew five walks and tallied 12 hits -- will help lift them in the standings if it continues.

Swanson noted that, as a group, the hitters have worked on adjusting at the plate and they have been better at “passing the baton” through the lineup and playing their style of baseball.

“We’ve taken a really good approach and mentality into the batter’s box, and we’ve been rewarded for that,” Swanson said.

Morel’s homer in the third inning was his third in the last six games. Since June 9, Morel is batting .440 with just two strikeouts to 11 hits. He has dropped his strikeout rate down to 29.2%, and he ranks first in slugging percentage (.709) and second in OPS (1.063) among MLB hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.

Morel’s six-game hot streak comes after he was taken out of the lineup during the Cubs’ series against the Angels in Anaheim June 6-8. This came on the heels of an eight-game stretch in which Morel hit just .048.

“I think sometimes perspective from the side and being able to take a minute to work on things without pressure to perform in the moments is probably healthy for everybody that’s going through some struggles,” Ross said. “It’s a hard balance, trying to play the matchups and see who’s swinging the bat well and balance that with what you feel like is going to help the team win.”

Morel said the off-days helped, and during that Angels series Swanson told him he thought the struggles at the plate were in part due to pressing and letting the game speed up. Morel joked that, since he returned to the lineup, he says “Thank you, Swanson” to himself after he gets a hit.

The Cubs' four straight wins since returning to Wrigley Field matches the longest winning streak they've had this season. They last won four in a row April 16-19 against the Dodgers and Athletics. Chicago came into Friday’s game just 3 1/2 games back in the NL Central, and with three more games against the first-place Pirates next week, it has an opportunity to make a jump in the standings.

“We see what’s in front of us with our division, so just gotta get hot, get on a roll, feel that sense of urgency,” Kyle Hendricks said.