Hoerner's speed perfectly suited to Wrigley

CHICAGO – With the wind howling in at Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon, it played to the Cubs’ advantage to have someone like Nico Hoerner in the lineup. This was not a day for deep fly balls, as evidenced by the handful of would-be home runs that stayed in the old ballpark. Line drives plus speed was the required recipe.

“It feels like he's been hitting line drives all over the place,” Cubs starter Jameson Taillon said.

Taillon described the conditions as “hit it into the wind -- good luck” for both the Cubs and Reds in what ended as a 1-0 victory for the North Siders at the Friendly Confines. Taillon and Nick Martinez matched zeros (with one Hoerner-fueled exception) at a rapid pace, leaving the field after just one hour and 48 minutes of play.

It was the fastest game played at Wrigley since May 24, 2001, when Chicago and Cincinnati breezed through a contest in an identical time. Friday’s swift result was the fastest Major League game since Armando Galarraga’s famous near-perfect game on June 2, 2010 (1:44) between Detroit and Cleveland.

Hoerner’s trek around the basepaths in the fifth inning made sure this one did not last one minute longer.

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“I'm lucky to start on a day like today,” said Taillon, who logged seven shutout innings to close the book on his 28-start campaign (3.27 ERA in 165 1/3 innings). “Not a great offensive environment. Just to find a way to get that done was pretty sweet.”

In the fifth, Hoerner pulled a 1-0 sinker that tailed inside up the left-field line and into the corner, allowing the Cubs second baseman to race to second with his team-leading 35th double of the season. Rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong then used a sacrifice bunt to move Hoerner to third base, setting up the lone run of the day.

Miguel Amaya followed by lofting a pitch from Martinez -- who worked all eight innings for Cincinnati -- into right field, where the wind toyed with the high, arcing fly ball. As right fielder Jake Fraley glided into position, Cubs third-base coach Willie Harris gave Hoerner his instructions: run home no matter what.

“When that ball went up in the air,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said, “Willie was yelling at Nico, which was really cool, like, 'You're going! I don't care where the ball ends up, you're going! You're going!' And that Fraley didn't get a great catch at it – essentially, he had to move his feet to catch it – was good.

“That's a tough job, and I think Willie did a really nice job there being aggressive.”

Hoerner hustled home as Fraley fired off a relay throw, and the second baseman slid in safely just ahead of the tag attempt by catcher Tyler Stephenson. Hoerner finished the game with a pair of hits -- he also legged out an infield single in the second -- to give him three consecutive multi-hit games and hits in 14 of his last 16 contests.

Back on Aug. 23, Hoerner was sporting a .252/.319/.343 slash line on the season and his OPS (.662) was at its low point within the season’s second half. Since then, he has hit .376/.424/.523 (.947 OPS) across a 29-game stretch with two games to go this season. On top of that, Hoerner is sitting on 30 steals this season to go along with elite defense at second.

“I haven’t had a lot of fortune in general with just where the ball’s been going,” Hoerner said earlier this week about his season overall. “But I think that’s best controlled by me hitting line drives. I think I’ve done a lot of that recently -- I don’t know if it’s actually at a different rate or anything.

“But when I’m moving best at the plate, I’m hitting a lot of balls that just give me a good chance to produce over and over and over. For me, that comes in the form of a lot of line drives. Line drives play in every situation no matter what you believe in hitting-wise. I feel like I’ve hit more line drives lately. Less chop and pop misses.”

To Hoerner’s point, he saw his line-drive rate climb to 35.1% in September, per Statcast. That was up a touch from July (34%) and August (33.3%), and a considerable jump from May (16.2%) and June (23.3%). And for all the ups and downs, Hoerner currently has a 105 wRC+ through 149 games this year, compared to the 104 wRC+ he logged in ‘23.

“Nico’s gift is the ball in play,” Counsell said. “He's a super valuable player.”