The ball was flying through the Golden night sky at Wrigley Field on Monday as the Chicago Cubs defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2, with all five runs coming via the long ball.
Kris Bryant homered twice, and Matt Szczcur also homered off reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw. Szczur's homer was Kershaw's 9th allowed this season, matching his total surrendered for all of his 2014 MVP season.
Bryant, the Cubs rookie phenom, hit a 73MPH Curveball into right field off Kershaw in the third inning to give Chicago a 2-1 lead. Kershaw allowed only one home run on a curveball all of last year, and none in 2012, but the breaking ball to Bryant was the first homer surrendered this year.
"It's surreal," Bryant said of going against Kershaw. "I'm facing guys that I grew up watching and they were on my fantasy baseball team in high school."
Bryant homered a second time in the bottom half of the eighth inning off of Dodgers reliever Adam Liberatore. It was Bryant's first multi-homer game of his young career, and the first home run allowed by Liberatore in his Major League career.
"This is a game of peaks and valleys, and I was in a valley," Bryant said of his 0-for-18 slump before the home run of Kershaw. "I just went into the game telling myself that I'm due, I'm due for a big game, and I got it."
Kiké Hernandez hit a solo shot in the Dodgers half of the third inning and rookie Joc Pederson homered with one-out in the top of the ninth for his 19th home run of the year. Other than the two solo blasts, Dodgers struggled offensively off Chicago's pitching as no runners reached scoring position in the game.
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Kershaw (5-5) is off to his worst season statistically since his rookie campaign in 2008 when the left-hander went 5-5 with a 4.26 ERA in 22 games, allowing 11 home runs over that span.
"He's going to get everybody's best effort," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "Whenever any team faces him it's like a playoff game for them."
Tsuyoshi Wada started the game for the Cubs, but exited the contest with a deltoid injury in the third inning after allowing the home run to Hernandez. Travis Wood (4-3) replaced Wada and picked up the win allowing no runs on one hit in 3.1 innings of relief.
Former Cardinals' closer Jason Motte, relinquished a rocket shot to Pederson in the ninth, but earned his second save of the season.
The Cubs played the game under protest after a bizarre moment occurred in the sixth when some of the lights went out after a zap of lightning lit up the golden Chicago sky. Joe Maddon came out to argue that the game should be delayed until the string of lights were fixed, but in reality, he was filibustering to get to reigning NL Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw.
"I just wanted to be a little more patient and wait for the lights to come back on," Maddon said. "That's it, nothing more complicated than that."
After ten minutes, Kershaw got angry, and was seen yelling at the umpires to restart the game. The game was eventually restarted, but Maddon and the Cubs made a formal protest.
"Standing around for 10 minutes, my legs were getting heavy," Kershaw said of the delay. "I don't know if Joe [Maddon] did it on purpose or not, it didn't affect me, but it was a pretty good idea."
Game Notes:
Dodgers reliever Joel Peralta was activated from the 15-day disabled list before the game.
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