Steele makes Cy Young statement with dominant start

CHICAGO -- Justin Steele could not contain himself. After firing a fastball into the zone and beyond the bat of San Francisco’s Patrick Bailey in the seventh inning on Monday afternoon, the Cubs lefty strode off the hill with a triumphant scream and both arms flexed.

“It’s just Wrigley. It’s just the fans realizing the moment,” Steele said. “They brought the energy and I kind of like to feed off it. It was awesome to pitch in that environment.”

And it’s not even October yet.

Facing a Giants club that is trying to chase down the Cubs in the National League’s crowded Wild Card race, Steele turned in an October-esque performance, guiding the Cubs to a 5-0 victory. He logged eight scoreless innings, allowed just two hits and stacked up a career-high 12 strikeouts, reasserting his place among the favorites for the league’s Cy Young Award with a month to play.

The field of contenders for the NL’s top pitching trophy currently features the likes of San Diego’s Blake Snell, Atlanta’s Spencer Strider, Arizona’s Zac Gallen and Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler. But Steele is very much in the mix, with a 16-3 record and a 2.55 ERA that ranks second in baseball among qualified pitchers, behind only Snell. His 16 wins are tied with Strider for the MLB lead.

• Games remaining (24): vs. SFG (2), vs. AZ (4), at COL (3), at AZ (3), vs. PIT (3), vs. COL (3), at ATL (3), at MIL (3).

• Standings update: The Cubs (74-64) are 2 1/2 games behind the Brewers (76-61) for first place in the NL Central, after Milwaukee lost to the Pirates on Monday night. The Cubs and Brewers have split the season series so far, so the tiebreaker has not yet been determined. Chicago sits in the second Wild Card spot, three games ahead of the D-backs (71-67) and Reds (72-68), 3 1/2 games ahead of the Marlins (70-67) and four games in front of the Giants (70-68). The Cubs have won the tiebreaker over San Francisco, but lost it to Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Miami. They have not played the D-backs yet, but have seven games against them coming up in the next two weeks.

“I love that his name is getting mentioned in that -- he deserves that,” Cubs manager David Ross said of the Cy Young picture. “But for us, you feel like it’s a really important day for us to grab a win. He’s going to give us a chance to win, right? The ‘Win Day’ guy in the staff. Steeley feels like he’s that guy.”

The Giants found that out from the jump.

Early on in Monday’s game, Steele came out firing a barrage of four-seam fastballs, accounting for 15 of his 21 pitches in the first inning. Cubs veteran catcher Yan Gomes picked up quickly that the left-hander was locating his heater with more precision than usual, making it a bit easier to attack and adjust as the day wore on.

“We know what Steeley’s got,” Gomes said. “He’s got a tremendous heater that sometimes plays as a cutter and rises sometimes. And we try to play that in-between. Call a pitch, hope it does what we want it to do. But today, it was one of the more sharp moments I’ve ever seen him. I wanted it up -- he threw it up. I wanted it down -- he threw it down.”

With Gomes guiding Steele along, the lefty featured 73 four-seamers and balanced that with 32 sliders. He generated 13 swinging strikes with the heater and another five with the breaking pitch. Steele set down 16 in a row from the second inning to the eighth, and none of the four baserunners he encountered reached second.

“He’s got a lot of movement on his fastball,” Giants shortstop Paul DeJong said. “It’s really like a cutter. He’s also kind of effectively wild, too. You’re looking up and away for something to kind of come back towards the middle, but sometimes it just stays up there.”

It is only a two-pitch mix, but that unpredictability can leave batters baffled.

“It’s really exciting to have him on our side,” Gomes said. “I know when guys are at the plate -- I haven’t seen this many times -- they all kind of look at the board to see what pitch it was. It’s just a fastball and a slider -- not to downplay it. It’s a gift.”

The gift has kept on giving, playing a key role in getting the Cubs into playoff position and putting Steele in the thick of a Cy Young debate that will gather steam in the coming weeks. As things stand, Steele has logged 152 innings with 153 strikeouts against 33 walks.

“September is usually when the Cy Youngs come out,” Gomes said. “When you’re having outings like this, the voters like it, man.”

In this win, Steele became the first Cubs pitcher since Yu Darvish (on Sept. 22, 2019) to rack up at least a dozen strikeouts. He is the first Cubs lefty starter since at least 1901 to twirl at least eight scoreless innings while allowing two hits or fewer and picking up 12 strikeouts or more in a game.

Steele also became the first Cubs starter (lefty or righty) to have at least 12 strikeouts and no more than two hits allowed in eight innings or more since Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter on Aug. 30, 2015. During that Summer of ‘15, Arrieta picked up the last Cy Young Award by a Cubs pitcher.

“It’s really cool. It’s quite the honor,” Steele said of being in that race. “But, for me, I just want to keep showing up every day and winning ballgames. I really like where the team’s at.”