CHICAGO — The Colorado guy did the Rockies no favors Wednesday night at Wrigley Field.
Longmont native , a former Faith Christian High School star who burst into the majors last year, threw the first haymaker and the knockout blows against his hometown Rockies. Bote had a three-run homer, a three-RBI double and the game-winning RBI single as Chicago beat Colorado 9-8.
As Rockies manager Bud Black succinctly put it: Bote “had some good swings tonight, for sure.”
Amid a dense, rolling fog, right-handers and Cubs starter Yu Darvish moved the game along quickly through the first four innings, as the teams combined for just three hits in a 0-0 game.
“(Darvish) was on today,” Rockies outfielder said. “He was throwing cutters up and in, cutters down and in, and sliders off that. He goes from the stretch, so you can’t really time him up, and he was changing up (our timing) a lot early.”
But two-out singles by Willson Contreras and Jayson Heyward in the fifth inning broke up the pitcher’s duel and set up Bote’s jack to left field off a hanging Marquez breaking ball, giving the Cubs a 3-0 lead en route to clinching the series win.
“German’s breaking ball, at critical times, was not properly thrown,” Black said. “That was the case on the Bote homer.”
From there, the evening’s quality pitching disappeared. The Colorado offense woke up with three runs in the sixth, chasing Darvish with RBIs by , and as the Rockies also got a little help from Anthony Rizzo’s throwing error.
But the game wasn’t tied for long, as the wheels came off for Marquez in the sixth. Kyle Schwarber led off with a double and then things went seriously downhill for Colorado, as Marquez surrendered two runs and left the bases loaded for after the right-hander plunked Contreras in his final batter of the game.
Rusin got Heyward to line out for the second out of the frame, but the next at-bat, Bote roped a change-up deep into the left field corner to score three. Marquez’s final line was a career-high tying eight earned runs.
“It felt like my delivery was too quick in the sixth,” Marquez said. “I didn’t take a moment to step off and make an adjustment. I just have to keep my head up now and prepare for my next outing.”
Colorado’s offense, showing some of the same flashes of prowess it demonstrated during the recent 9-1 homestand, retaliated with four runs in the seventh.
“We stayed at it — we got some singles, we worked some counts, we strung some hits together,” Black said. “Darvish has some stuff to get some strikeouts, which he did tonight, but as the game wore on with him and to their bullpen … Our approach and our at-bats were pretty good, and it showed (in the box).”
With right-hander Brad Brach pitching, led off the seventh inning with a walk, then and singled to score Hampson. Dahl had a two-RBI triple before Arenado — who hit a long fly down the left-field line that pulled just foul of tying the game with a homer — scored him with a sacrifice fly to make it 8-7.
With the crowd chanting his name, Bote had the last laugh offensively, though, as his RBI single in the eighth inning off gave him a career-high four hits, and he also finished with a career-high seven RBIs. It also proved key after Colorado plated a run off Steve Cishek in the ninth inning.
“Guys got in front of me all night long, and I just happen to hit the mistakes to bring them in,” said Bote, whose showing was the best offensive output by a Cubs second baseman since Ryne Sandberg’s seven-RBI night in June 1984.
