Game summary:

• The Cardinals sent 10 men to the plate in the bottom of the first and scored 6 runs. The highlight was a grand slam by Marcell Ozuna, his first homer since June 16. That was a stretch of six weeks!

Stats By STATS @StatsBySTATS

Jose Quintana needed 51 pitches to get through the 1st inning against the ‪@Cardinals today. That’s the most pitches needed by any pitcher in the 1st inning against St. Louis in the pitch-count era (since 1988).

The previous high was 48, set by Kerry Wood in 2000.   ‪#STLCards

• Jose Quintana’s day lasted just 3 innings. Have gave up 6 ER on 6 hits, walked three and struck out two.
• This wasn’t about who had the better bullpen, but rather the better starting pitcher.
• The only shaky inning for Miles was the fourth, where he gave up two runs. He threw 6 innings, gave up 2 ER on 6 hits, walked one and struck out two. Solid performance.
• Mikolas’ ERA sits at 2.83 on the year and he improved to 11-3. That ERA ranks fourth among NL starting pitchers.
• Ozuna in the 5 spot certainly worked out today. You wonder why the change wasn’t made sooner. Hopefully we see more power from him regardless of the lineup but maybe he doesn’t feel as much pressure if he’s not the cleanup hitter every day?

• Dakota Hudson relieved Mikolas in the seventh. His first MLB inning went like this: strikeout, strikeout, ground out. Not bad.
• Jordan Hicks and Bud Norris pitched scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth.

The 6-0 lead after 1 became 6-2 but that’s all the Cubs could muster. Winning is fun, isn’t it? The Cardinals win 6-2 and go for the sweep on Sunday night.