CHICAGO — One day after his home run into a gale-force wind launched the Chicago Cubs to a 1-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds, third baseman David Bote suffered a separated left shoulder and had to be helped off the field.
The injury put a damper on a 10-2 win over the Reds, the Cubs’ sixth in a row and 11th in 13 games, momentarily silencing the season-high crowd of 24,272 on a cool but sunny Saturday at Wrigley Field.
Bote is headed to the injured list — where Jason Heyward, Nico Hoerner and Jake Marisnick already reside — for an extended stay.
“It’s unfortunate to see that,” infielder Eric Sogard said. “David is such a great player and a great person and works so hard every day.”
Anthony Rizzo missed his fourth straight game Saturday with lower-back pain, and all the health issues have forced manager David Ross to mix and match his lineup daily.
“I’ve never had to deal with anything like this,” Ross said.
Despite all the injuries, the Cubs are enjoying their hottest streak since the start of the 2020 season, winning their fifth straight series. They’ve gone 19-8 since April 29 and are a season-high seven games over .500 at 29-22.
The more the Cubs look like credible contenders, the more difficult it will be for team President Jed Hoyer to deal any of his stars before the July 31 trade deadline.
Rookies Keegan Thompson (3-1) was awarded the win in relief of Zach Davies, and Sogard, Ian Happ and Joc Pederson all drove in a pair of runs in a 13-hit attack.
Bote’s injury occurred in the fourth inning after he slid past second base trying to break up a double play on a grounder off the bat of Sogard, who collided with first baseman Alex Blandino on the play but was uninjured. Bote clutched his left shoulder after sliding past the bag and was in obvious pain.
“These guys give their compete effort,” Ross said. “To see a guy lying down in that much pain, it’s scary.”
The doctors put the shoulder back in place, Ross said, and Bote was undergoing further evaluation. After a challenge by Reds manager David Bell, Bote was charged with interference, which led to Sogard being called out at first.
The Cubs scored a pair of runs in the second inning on a pair of RBI infield hits from Sogard and Davies, who brought Bote home on a perfectly executed squeeze bunt. After the Reds tied it in the fifth on Tyler Stephenson’s two-run double off Thompson, the Cubs answered with a four-run inning off archnemesis Amir Garrett and Tejay Antone.
Garrett’s bases-loaded walk to Sogard provided the loudest moment of the season to date, thanks to the increased capacity at the ballpark and a raised level of excitement created by a suddenly red-hot team.
“Good to have that feeling out on the field again,” Sogard said.
Added Ross: “Nice and loud, really enjoyed that one. It felt like normal baseball.”
Ross said he was able to “check out” the crowd during Rafael Ortega’s homer in the seventh, Ortega’s first since Sept. 29, 2019, when he was playing for the Atlanta Braves.
“ ‘Whoomp! (There It Is)’ started playing, and the crowd was going crazy in the stands and everybody was dancing around,” Ross said. “That’s a reminder of the great energy, a great moment, a great feeling that happens here at Wrigley Field when you start having success and the fans are into it.”
Ortega, called up when Hoerner went down last week, is just the latest Cubs player to get an opportunity because of an injury.
“The first thing I thought was that hitting a home run here at Wrigley Field was really exciting,” Ortega said through an interpreter. “That was all that was going through my head.”
The Cubs continued their assault on the Reds bullpen with five straight one-out singles in a three-run eighth, cruising to the finish line.
The Cubs bullpen’s franchise-record streak of not allowing an earned run ended at 38 1/3 innings, but five relievers combined to limit the Reds to one run in four innings.
Losing a popular teammate like Bote will be difficult, but this team has grown used to handling adversity through the first two months. Ross thinks he knows why.
“If you have two equally talented groups, the team that cares about one another more is somehow going to find a way to beat the other team,” he said. “That’s just my opinion. I have no scientific evidence to (prove it), other than my experiences.”
Ross’s theory will be tested over the next few months as the Cubs continue to surprise the experts.