Cubs Week In Review: Carson Kelly's Walk-Off Salvages the Record & Vibes

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Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images

However hard it is to keep a good team down, it's even harder for said good team to find itself in a groove. With eight current big leaguers on the Chicago Cubs' roster currently on the IL, Lady Luck has been less than kind to Craig Counsell's ball club in the early going. With Cade Horton out for the season and the return dates of both Matthew Boyd and Justin Steele unknown, the depth of Jed Hoyer's club is being tested in ways no one expected. Adversity finds its way into most MLB clubhouses, but after already having encountered more than their fair share, how the North Siders respond now will say much about where their season goes from here.

Said North Siders started their week in St. Petersburg, Florida, playing the role of visitors at Tropicana Field, which hosted its first game since 2024, when the ballpark sustained severe damage in Hurricane Milton. As has often been the case, Cubbies starter Jameson Taillon struggled early, surrendering four runs across the second and third innings. The Cubs collected four runs on four hits, unable to generate any real traffic on the bases. They dropped the series opener to the Rays 6-4. 

Chicago has yet to produce much in the way of what ought to be the right formula for offensive production in this first full month of the season. Be that as it may, the bats hummed, rattled, and shook themselves awake in the second of three contests versus Tampa Bay. The squad swung the bats with the level of ease and confidence it would need to climb the ranks of its division. The offensive outburst was anchored by Alex Bregman and Pete Crow-Armstrong, who connected on his first home run of the 2026 campaign. Despite Crow-Armstrong's frustrations at the plate, he's provided tangible evidence that he might return to his 2025 form sometime in the near future. 

Building on their success from the previous outing, the North Siders took the series against the Rays in a convincing yet cathartic fashion. Filling in as a starter for Counsell's depleted rotation, Colin Rea hurled a valiant five innings, keeping the Rays honest by recovering from two walks given up. Quietly ascending as a leader on this ball club, Nico Hoerner delivered clutch knocks for his squad, including his first big fly of the young season. 

Dating back to last year, few starting pitchers in the majors needed a "get right" game more than the squad's enigmatic lefty Shota Imanaga. And boy did he get it. Over the course of several starts, Imanaga had started to garner a reputation for giving up home runs early in contests, putting his squad behind the proverbial "hole" before they're able to get off the ground. Adjustments in his release from the mound seem to have shored up his mechanical issues. Imanaga dazzled, going six no-hit innings opposite the Pittsburgh Pirates. Alas, his pitch count was too great for him to continue his pursuit of history in this contest, giving way to reliever Caleb Thielbar. In circumstances such as this one, thinking about what's unfolding, let alone speaking of it, can disrupt the order established by the baseball gods. Almost on cue, Thielbar labored, allowing the Bucs leadoff runner aboard before surrendering a homer to Jason Reynolds. In one swing of the bat, Imanaga's Herculean effort on the mound was reduced to a footnote as his squad's offense once again could not come through in the clutch in a 2-0 loss. 

The 150-year-old baseball team known as the Chicago Cubs is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its iconic 2016 World Series championship squad. The exhilarated milestone is being commemorated in a myriad of ways, including the return of key players like Ben Zobrist. The vibes around Wrigley were as electric as the energy emanating from the Aon Center, with one of its most cherished heroes returning to the city that made him a legend. Sadly, while the fans safely secured their Zobrist bobbleheads, the Cubs were unable to rally back from an early 3-0 deficit. A desperate, ninth-inning rally knotted things up versus the Pirates, giving the folks at 1060 West Addison free baseball. Squandering multiple opportunities to complete the dramatic comeback, a throwing error on a slow roller back to the mound afforded the Pirates the chance to plate what would become the game and series-winning run. The North Siders fell 4-3 in eleven innings. 

For so many of us, in multiple arenas in life, getting out of our own way is the hardest thing to do. This truism rang true for starter Jameson Taillon, who bookended one uninspiring start earlier in the week with another. The veteran hurler saddled his squad with an early 5-0 mountain to climb. Though he went on to settle in and fan 10 Pittsburgh batters, Taillon's performance deflated the spirits of a home crowd clad in their finest summer attire. All signs in this game pointed to a would-be sweep, the first at Wrigley Field since 2019. This admirable club, which is full of potential, had other plans, however. Entering the eighth inning as a pinch hitter, Michael Busch stepped up to the plate, toting around a woeful 0-30 stretch to start the season. The clouds lifted when he put a bloop single into center field, knotting the game up on the strength of some superb base running. Daniel Palencia blanked the Buccos in the ninth, setting the stage for Carson Kelly's walk-off knock to the center field warning track. Though the victory merely salvaged one game of the three-game set, the heroics of the comeback for the Cubbies symbolized a shift in tenor for a team that was visibly disturbed and pushing too hard to manifest its expected results. 

Having lifted the clouds from what could have been a sobering sweep at home, the Cubs now look to establish some momentum as they travel to Citizens Bank Field to do battle with the Phillies for three games. Consistency will be the key for this lineup as it seeks the rhythm necessary to play sustainable, winning baseball. With spirits lifted from the energizing victory over a division foe, this next series in Philadelphia affords this Cubs squad the chance to get its record above the .500 mark for the first time in 2026. Before the season, that would not have sounded like much, but with the club laboring out of the gate, it would be a sign of good things to come. 

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