A light rain quickly turned into a hard pour as the skies opened while Michael Busch stood on deck.
Busch heard Chicago Cubs fans start to get amped up while preparing to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning against San Diego Padres right-hander Enyel De Los Santos. As De Los Santos delivered an elevated 93.7 mph fastball to Busch, lightning lit up the sky above Wrigley Field. Within a flash, Busch unleashed a perfectly timed swing to send a 108 mph rocket to the right field bleachers for a first-pitch, no-doubt, walk-off home run in a 3-2 Cubs victory.
“It was pretty special, it happened so fast,” Busch said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a walk-off home run in my life so it’s pretty cool.”
Busch’s first home run in 18 games gave the Cubs (22-15) their first walk-off win of the season. Their 13-5 record at home is second-best in the majors. Before Busch’s at-bat, shortstop Dansby Swanson told him that De Los Santos was going to throw him a heater. That put Busch in the mindset to be ready for the fastball and not miss it.
“It was fantastic, he didn’t want a rain delay,” said a grinning Miguel Amaya.
The Cubs avoided wasting another standout performance by left-hander Shota Imanaga. He shut down the San Diego Padres for seven innings, working around his only trouble in the sixth when the Padres connected for back-to-back one-out singles. Busch and Amaya collided in foul territory trying and failing to catch a pop-up off Manny Machado’s bat. Imanaga responded by striking out Machado and Xander Bogaerts to end the inning.
Busch took the blame for the ball dropping when Machado should have been out.
“Those are two really good hitters, been around for a long time,” Busch said. “So to do that in that inning and his pitch count was getting up, to still be able to do that was pretty awesome.”
After Imanaga got through the seventh with 95 pitches, Counsell told the lefty in the dugout he would be going back out for the eighth to face a couple of San Diego hitters. Counsell anticipated the Padres’ move to pinch-hit Luis Arraez to lead off the inning, giving the Cubs the matchup they wanted. Arraez found a hole with a single to right field that had a .210 expected average. Five pitches later, Jurickson Profar took an Imanaga splitter down and out of the zone for a go-ahead two-run home run.
Counsell and Imanaga thought it was a well-spotted pitch that Profar put a good swing on. Through seven starts, Imanaga’s 1.07 ERA leads the majors, nearly half a run better than the next closest starter (Atlanta’s Reynaldo Lopéz, 1.53).
The Cubs got a run back in the bottom of the eighth, tying it on Christopher Morel’s sacrifice fly following Mike Tauchman’s leadoff walk and Cody Bellinger’s third hit of the night in his first game off the injured list. The sequence set up Busch’s heroics.
“First pitch and it was right on time,” Bellinger said. “Rain was coming — that boy Buschy.”
