By Chris Kuc
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO —With the surging Chicago Cubs reeling off victory after victory, there isn’t much weighing on Joe Maddon’s mind that would keep the manager up at night.
The morning after he fell asleep while watching an episode of the “The Office,” Maddon was asked if there are any worrisome aspects to a team that is running away and hiding from the rest of the National League Central.
After a pause, Maddon came up with “situational hitting.”
“Moving the baseball when it needs to be put in play,” Maddon said before Friday’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field. “That’s still probably the one thing that I would like to see better.”
Maddon and the 40,848 gathered at Wrigley saw plenty of it Friday as the Cubs’ bats came through in pretty much every situation during a 13-2 thrashing of the Cardinals.
The victory extended their season-high winning streak to 11 games and their lead over St. Louis in the Central to 14 games. The Cubs have started August with 10 consecutive victories, the first time since 1885 they have accomplished that feat.
“It’s starting to feel more like the beginning of the season — we had a pretty good start this year,” Maddon said. “When the guys walk out there there’s a strong sense or belief that we’re going to win the game somehow.
“When you’re going well, everybody feels that way. What’s happening right now, you’re seeing a lot of young guys all getting an opportunity … and they’re all coming through.”
Matt Szczur went 3-for-4 with two home runs and three RBIs, Kris Bryant 3-for-5 with two RBIs and Jorge Soler, Javier Baez and Willson Contreras each added homers and two RBIs.
The Cubs’ five home runs equaled a season high and added up to plenty of offensive support for starter Jake Arrieta, who yielded one run in 52/3 innings en route to his 14th victory of the season.
“An 11-game winning streak is important,” Arrieta said. “It’s good for our ballclub to be able to string wins together on a consistent basis like this. Eleven is really special but we want to be playing our best baseball going into October.”
The Cubs hit Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright with two runs in the first and then tacked on five more in the second, highlighted by Contreras’ blast to left-center. They then piled it on with two in the sixth and four more in the seventh.
“We know what we’re capable of,” Arrieta said. “Regardless of how many games you win the division by it’s a good thing but once you get to October the slate is clean. That’s the focus. … Up until this point we’ve done a really nice job.”
The victory was the Cubs’ eighth straight at home and put them a season-high 32 games above .500 at 73-41.
“The good thing about that is we don’t look at yesterday,” Szczur said. “… A lot of teams do that. You can be upset about your last at-bat (or) your last day, whatever, but for us we show up ready to win every day.”
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